An Oxbow In Time
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Something sinister is buried beneath London, and it could flatten the city, then plunge the entire human race into another Dark Age. When the Doctor begins to investigate, he learns some things he'd rather not know, concerning the universe, his own roots, and people he previously trusted. In the end, he, Martha, and Donna must learn how to contain the threat before it's too late!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello folks, happy summer!**

 **This story is going to stand fairly well on its own, but it is a continuation of the events of "Keeping With the Enemy." It was just too tempting to write a story about the Doctor and Martha doing their alien-troubleshooting thing with Donna! The rapport that Martha and Donna could have...**

 **Read it as its own thing. It's fine. Trust me!**

 **The previous story saw the Doctor and Donna follow the Jones family, and an alien threat, to Mallorca, Spain, in order to save the planet from being pillaged and plundered for its natural resources. In the course of things, Donna became quite good friends with Martha's family, and Martha and the Doctor became, well... more than just Doctor and Companion. ;-) In the end, the Doctor dispatched (read: killed) the alien - though there was no other way to handle it. Afterwards, TARDIS needed a period of convalescence, so the new lovers remained in Mallorca for an additional month, after the others went home to London.**

 **And here we are, back in London now with our heroes, on the verge of hitting the "open road" in the TARDIS again. Though, as you might have guessed, a few wrinkles need to be ironed out first...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

ONE

The day had been fraught with difficult phone calls. And it was only eight in the morning.

Just after six, Martha Jones had been awakened by her father, ringing to let her know that her great-uncle Floyd had passed away in his sleep. Clive and Floyd had been close, and it was definitely hard for Martha to hear her father's voice break.

After that, she had gone back to sleep, in her own bed in London, which was nothing new. The fact that the Doctor was slumbering beside her… _that_ was new.

Less than an hour later, her mother had called to discuss bringing her "new paramour" to the funeral.

"New _paramour_ , mum? Really?" she asked, sardonically, sitting up in bed. "Can't you just talk like a normal person?"

The Doctor sat up beside her, and smirked.

Francine, as they both knew, was a bit of a control-freak, and not yet totally comfortable with their romance. But all she wanted was to _know_. Was the Doctor coming? Did he know about how to act/dress at a human funeral? What should she tell people his name is? What should she tell people he does for a living?

"The Doctor and I will discuss it, and get back to you, okay?" Martha said, calmly, reckoning her mother did have a few legitimate concerns.

"It seems like I'll need to build a human identity of sorts, if you and I are going to be together," he said, muttering, after she'd reported the issue to him.

"Well, in that case, you should know, _John Smith_ sounds right suspicious," she told him. "It sounds like exactly what it is: someone who doesn't want their identity known."

"I know," he sighed. "Just never had to think about it in the long-term before."

While they were discussing it, the phone rang again. It was Tom Milligan."

"Oh, damn," she said.

"Who's Tom Milligan?"

"That guy, remember? We went out on a couple of dates before Mallorca..."

"Oh, right, right, right," he said, quickly. Then, with a big, cheeky smile, he asked, "Want me to answer it? It'll save you the difficult conversation."

"No thanks," she told him, indulgently. "This is a battle I must fight alone."

"Right, then. Suit yourself," he said, kissing her shoulder. "I'll hop in the shower."

She answered Tom's call, made small talk, spoke in very general terms about her trip to Mallorca with her family. Then, she steeled herself, and broke it to the mild-mannered paediatrician that she wouldn't be able to see him again, because she was now pursuing a relationship with someone else.

"Oh," said Milligan, sounding hurt. "I mean… I know we've only been out a couple of times, but I really like you. I was sort of hoping…"

"I like you, too," she told him. "But… look, I won't give you all the details, Tom. Just know that this is a moment I need to seize. Haven't you ever had _the one that got away_?"

"I have now," he answered, rather sullenly.

"Ugh, please don't do that," she whined.

She wanted to avoid telling him the whole story (well, the human-friendly version of the story), but also wanted to avoid any talk that sounded like making excuses. So she opted for the minimalist approach, and told him almost nothing. Which made her seem cagey, and she had also wanted to avoid being cagey, but… something had to give.

"All right, then," Tom sighed. "Have a nice life."

And then, at around eight, a fourth phone call came in, while the Doctor was putting toast on her plate, directly out of the toaster, and shaking his right hand because he'd burnt his fingers.

"Now what?" he asked, annoyed at the burn, and at the phone.

It was Julia Swayles, fellow med-student-turned-resident-M.D. at Royal Hope Hospital.

"Thank God you've answered," she croaked. "I've got flu. I can barely stand."

"Ugh," Martha groaned. "I'm so sorry! You sound awful!"

"I truly think I may die," Julia told her. "Would you take my shift today? I'm supposed to be working nine to nine."

Martha sighed. She and the Doctor and Donna had planned on hitting the open road this afternoon. But, she looked at the Doctor across the kitchen with supplication in her eyes, and said to her friend through the phone, "You know what? Sure. I'll be a little late, but I'll get there as soon as I can. You just get better, okay?"

"Problem?" asked the Doctor.

"Julia's got flu," she sighed, cutting off the call. "Remember Julia? Clever, but a bit skittish?"

"Yeah, I remember," he said, extracting the butter from the fridge. "So, going to work?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"It's all right. We'll just leave tonight, instead of this afternoon. Or tomorrow morning. I'll ring Donna and let her know she can spend a few more hours with her granddad." And he set about buttering toast for the two of them.

"Thanks," she said, and she walked around the kitchen island, pecked him on the cheek, then took her plate of toast and a mug of tea upstairs, so she could shower and change.

* * *

At three minutes past nine, she arrived at the bus stop where she usually caught a ride to the hospital. The bench was occupied by three people already, so she just leaned against the bus shelter and waited.

And it gave her time to think.

After the month she'd had, Martha almost felt like _reality_ had been phoning her all morning, reminder her of its existence.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, she and the Doctor had returned to London in the TARDIS, after a six-week sting in Mallorca. This was composed of a two-week family holiday, and a month-long convalescent period for the Doctor's beloved blue vessel. Their time, over that month, had been spent mostly in remote parts of the island in small bungalows, watching the sea lap at the shores, drinking Sangria, and making love. Occasionally, they would do things involving boats and/or putting on shoes, but mostly it was a much-needed, idle holiday.

And this morning, blaring like a foghorn, came her family, her personal drama, and her job.

She was facing up the street, waiting for the welcome sight of a tall red bus to appear upon the urban horizon, when something caught her eye.

In front of a block of student housing, where she stood on Earl's Court Road, there was a small planter area containing three large trees, and edged with some red stone that separated cement from dirt. There was some etching upon one of the red stone panels, words and numbers that said, " _1938._ _In septuaginta annis, tempus advenit responsio._ "

"Hm," Martha said with a curious shrug. She could recognise that this was Latin, but she didn't know enough about the "dead" language to know what it meant, and/or whether it was saying anything bizarre.

What she _could_ confirm was bizarre, however, was the fact that she had stood in this same spot, leaning against this same bus shelter, looking about at the same panels of pavement and stone for the past six months, and yet, she had never seen this lettering. There were no visible indicators that there had been construction in the area, nor re-landscaping of the front of the building… no reason why a wicked-obvious, Latin-engraved square of stone shouldn't be seen by her.

And yet, there it was. Clear as you like, and definitely brand-new. Though, she had to admit, it looked like it had been there for ages.

What was it doing there? Why was this the first time she was seeing it?

 _The only explanation could be time travel_ , she said to herself, and then laughed inwardly.

To a normal person, it would just be a glib response. To her, it was something, perhaps, to be considered.

And so, she extracted a notepad and pen from her shoulder-bag, and jotted down the words.

Absently, she wondered if the panel would be there tomorrow.

The bus arrived more or less on-time, and when Martha looked at her watch, she reckoned she'd get to Royal Hope right around 9:30.

Just as she sat, the phone rang in her bag. Considering the morning she'd spent with this phone, she let out a mild curse and sighed.

She did not recognise the number, but she answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"Hey you… it's Donna," said the boisterous ginger on the other end. "How's it been?"

"Having a bit of a weird morning," Martha answered. "You?"

"Well, funny you should ask," Donna said. "I rang the Doctor about ten minutes ago, to ask if we could just get the hell out of here early today, since I can't bloody stand my mother any longer…"

"Oh. Have a row?"

"Yeah."

"Over the same old?" Martha asked.

"Over the fact that I haven't got a job or a boyfriend," Donna answered. "So… yes."

Martha laughed. "Well, I've got both, and my mother isn't any happier. Maybe it's just mothers."

"Your mum is lovely, don't sell her short."

"I know, I know," Martha said, like a child, rolling her eyes a bit.

"So, speaking of your job, the Doctor said you're covering a shift for a friend today?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Martha sighed. "I guess I've delayed your quick getaway from your mum."

"Well, yes, but in light of that, I'm phoning you to ask if I can stay at your place tonight."

"Sure, no problem."

"Apparently, we're leaving tomorrow morning, since you're getting off kind of late," said Donna. "I asked if I could stay there, and the Doctor said to ask you."

"Yeah, stay at mine. Don't give it another thought."

"Where's the TARDIS parked?"

"In my back garden."

After a pause, Donna asked, "Why can't we just leave tonight after you get home?"

"Probably because he wants us to get a good night's sleep before we go. Something about keeping humans on a twenty-four-hour cycle," Martha said, again, rolling her eyes. "Like that _ever_ sticks once we get on the road, but whatever."

"That's daft, but you didn't hear it from me," Donna said.

"My lips are sealed," Martha whispered.

"Okay, then, I guess I'll see you…"

"Wait, Donna?"

"Yeah?"

"Something a little bit _off_ happened this morning."

"I'd be astonished if nothing a bit _off_ had. Consider who you hang out with."

"But this is… well, I can't say it has nothing to do with him, because what the hell do I know? But do you know Park House, on Earl's Court Road?"

"Vaguely. It's student housing, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Well, it's near my flat – it's where I catch my bus."

"Oh. Okay." -

"I've been standing there at that corner, there at Earl's Court and Bolton Gardens every day for months – well, most days – and believe me, I'm _familiar_ with the landscape."

"How d'you mean?"

"Okay, this morning, I saw an engraved panel that I've never seen before."

"What do you mean, engraved panel?"

"It was one of those reddish brick things, separating the sidewalk from some trees. And it had the year 1938 on it – or at least those four numbers in that order – and then something in Latin. And, like I said, I've stood on that corner for months and never noticed it. I'm _certain_ I would have noticed it before today."

"So, what are you saying? It just _appeared_ there suddenly today?"

"Or, sometime in the last six weeks, since I've been away."

"So what's the problem? Someone put it there sometime in the last six weeks."

"But why? So random. And it was not a _new_ red panel - that would have been obvious. It just looked like, you know... part of the furniture."

"It's probably been walked on ten thousand times."

"I guess."

There was a brief silence, and then Donna asked, "Wait, did you say Earl's Court Road and Bolton Gardens?"

"Yeah."

There was another pause, and then, "I think I saw something about that on the news this morning. There's a time capsule buried there! They're getting ready to dig it up soon. It's going to be _an event_."

"Oh," Martha said. "Did they _just_ put down the plaque?"

"I don't know," Donna said. "Why would they bury a time capsule and then wait seventy years to put in a plaque?"

"Beats me," Martha sighed.

"Martha, are you _sure_ it hasn't just been there for ages and you've never noticed?"

"I suppose anything is possible," Martha mused. "Who buried the thing anyway?"

"I don't know, I didn't catch that part," Donna told her. "It's student housing, innit? Maybe students buried it."

"It was not student housing in 1938," Martha said. "Did such a thing even exist in 1938?"

"Then I have no idea. What _was_ there in 1938?"

"No idea. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if we knew someone who could tell us?"

"It would. It really would," Donna answered with mock resignedness.

That was when Martha's phone rang. Again.

"Blimey, my life is like a bloody call centre today," she remarked. She stole a glance at the screen. "Sorry, Donna, I'm getting a call from my dad. Can I let you go? See you at home tonight?"

"Great. Thanks for letting me crash with you."

"No problem," Martha chirped, cutting off the call. Then, she hit another button. "Hi, dad."

"Hi, sweetheart. Listen, Uncle Floyd's funeral is this Friday, at 10:00, at Christ Church in Kensington."

Martha jotted this info down on her arm. "Okay. Got it."

"You'll be there, then?"

"Yes, dad, I'll be there."

"And listen, you bring whomever you like, okay? And no one has to lie to anyone, I don't care what your mother says. You want to tell people he's an alien investigator time-traveller guy, then do it."

Martha laughed. "Okay, thanks, dad. I think we'll have to come up with _some_ sort of cover story, but it's good to know you're on our side."

When she placed the phone back in her bag, she realised she didn't fancy having to tell the Doctor and Donna that their departure would be delayed another five days. Then again, they had a time machine. They could go everywhere in the universe and spend a week, and still make it back for the funeral.

Somehow, though, that felt like cheating.

She'd see what the Doctor thought later. Just now, it was almost time to step off the bus and get into doctoring mode herself.

* * *

 **Slow start? Meh? Don't forget to leave a review before you go! :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, getting a bit further off the ground...**

 **I think this chapter will make you go, "Hm. Weird." And also it will make you smile. There's the seeds of a story-arc for Donna, as well as a cute little fourth-wall-breaking joke. ;-)**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

TWO

When Martha walked in through the front door, exhausted, just before midnight, she could smell popcorn.

She turned left into the parlour, and found the Doctor and Donna sitting on opposite ends of the sofa, watching a weepy film about a woman who dies in a car wreck before she can marry the man of her dreams. The man, Martha remembered from having seen the film long ago, was aptly named Chance.

The Doctor was squinting at the TV in confusion, and Donna was sniffling behind a tissue pressed to her mouth.

"They've known each other for four and a half minutes," the Doctor complained. "How could they have got engaged in the first place?"

"They've known each other three weeks," Donna corrected, annoyed.

"Oh, sorry," he retorted, sarcastically. " _Plenty_ of time to know that you want to spend the rest of eternity with someone."

"Oi, Spaceman. Human life is short. You've got to seize the day, don't you know that?"

"Er, hello?" Martha chuckled.

The Doctor turned and reached out an arm to her. "Oh, hi. Join us. The film is almost over."

"No, it's not! There's still forty-five minutes to go!" Donna protested.

"What?" the Doctor asked, incredulous. "Are you joshing me?"

"No! Chance still has to have the moment of personal catharsis at Aurora's funeral, and that can't just _happen_! It takes time."

"Yeah, well, not even I have time enough for _that_ ," the Doctor said to her, vexed. He stood up and walked toward Martha, then reached out and took her shoulder bag from her. "Hi. Glad you're home. Rough night?" he asked, pulling at a blood-stained scrub top that had been sticking out through a zip.

"Broken nose on a child. He wouldn't hold still. _Couldn't_ hold still. Last thing of the night. It's why I'm late… he didn't like Dr. Midland or any of the nurses, so his mum asked me to stay."

"Oh, good."

"Good?"

"Well, I was picturing something much worse. Want some tea?"

"No, I need to go up and wash blood out of my hair."

"Lovely."

"But I'll take a sandwich after I'm done, if you're doing the kitchen thing."

"Sure," he agreed. "Peanut butter or… salami?"

"Both sound good," she said. She pulled him by the lapel and he bent down slightly so she could kiss his cheek. Then she started up the stairs. Though, she stopped halfway up. "I meant… both of those things sound like good ideas. I don't want peanut butter and salami together. It's either or. You got that, right?"

He saluted her lazily, with a mock-seriousness on his face, to show that he understood, and was on the job.

Donna appeared in the doorway between the parlour and the front hall. "She's adorable," she whispered.

"That she is," he agreed, moving into the kitchen. He dropped Martha's shoulder bag onto a barstool.

"I think you should take that sandwich up to her."

"Good idea," he said.

"You know," Donna said, sheepishly. "So you can be alone with her."

"We've been alone together for a month, Donna," he said. "We scandalised the florae and faunae of Mallorca. We're fine mingling with other humanoids now."

She sat down on one of the other stools. "I just want to be... sensitive. You're in new relationship and… you know."

He looked expectantly at her.

She squirmed. "Well, I know you're going to be… icky… from time to time, and that's normal."

"Icky?"

"Yeah. Icky. Exchanging glances that make other people want to look away. Inside jokes that everyone knows they shouldn't ask about…"

"We'll be icky in private, thanks," he said, with a smirk.

"I don't want you to feel like you have to… for me… I just don't want to be a third wheel," she said, uncharacteristically quietly.

"You're not," he assured her. "Well… not any more than she is. Or I am."

"What? How are either of _you_ a third wheel?"

"Well, Martha's joining us, after you and I have been travelling quite happily together for a few months. She could feel like she's intruding… but she's not. Obviously. And you two… human, women, clever, light-hearted, thick as thieves…"

"Thick as thieves? What's that supposed to mean?" she asked him, feigning offence. "Are you saying women travel in packs, and keep secrets, and talk about men when we get together?"

"Don't you?" he asked, again, smirking.

"Sometimes," she conceded. "We also like daft tear-jerker films and decorative pillows. But don't go making assumptions, you. Martha and I like each other because we like each other. Not just because we're both women, and we're conspiring against you. I mean, we _do_ conspire against you, but that's neither here nor there."

He smiled. "See? It's the mark of a good trio: each one thinks _they_ are the odd man out, and each one is wrong."

"I suppose that's true," she answered. She reckoned it might be the case, but she was still uncertain. She was still slightly uneasy about the fact that she was now a single person who would be travelling with a couple.

He busied himself building a salami sandwich with a slice of deli cheese, and a bit of expired brown mustard.

Donna watched absently, and while he was placing the second piece of bread atop his masterpiece, she asked, "So did Martha tell you about the Latin thing?"

"No, what's the Latin thing?"

"She saw a piece of pavement or something engraved with the year 1938, and then I guess it's got some Latin phrase on it."

"Okay. So?"

"She thinks it's weird. She saw it this morning while she was waiting for the bus, and she is certain it wasn't there during the previous six months while she's stood in that spot, waiting for the bus."

"So someone put it there at some point over the last six weeks, since she's been in Mallorca."

"That's what I thought, but… well, actually it's at the corner of Earl's Court Road and Bolton Gardens. A totally unremarkable bit of the urban maze, and yet, I saw on the news this morning, there's a time capsule buried there."

"Really? That's… kind of cool, actually."

"Yeah, but why there?"

"I dunno. What's there?"

"Student housing."

"Students do weird things just for the hell of it," he mused. "Just ask Rose."

"But it wasn't student housing in 1938. Was it?"

"I don't know."

"Can't you find out? Can't you just go look?"

"Wait… why, again? Why would we bother?"

Donna paused. "I'm not entirely sure. Ask Martha. She's the one who's got it under her skin. She's the one swearing it wasn't there a month and a half ago, yet supposedly, it's been there seventy years."

"Okay, I'll ask her about it," he said, picking up the plate with Martha's sandwich. He also reached in to the fridge on his way out of the kitchen, and extracted a cold bottle of mineral water, and brought it upstairs.

Donna returned to the sofa to finish her "daft" film.

* * *

When Martha emerged from the shower, there was a salami sandwich and a bottle of mineral water on the foot of her bed, and a Time Lord sitting against the headboard with her laptop.

She walked forward, directly toward the sandwich, and said, "Oh, thanks. I really needed this." She took a large bite, awkwardly trying to make sure that the towel wrapped around her didn't fall to the floor.

He watched her, and smiled. It was a smile that gave away the fact that he was absolutely smitten.

"What're you doing?" she asked him, mouth full.

"I'm looking up that time capsule on Earl's Court Road."

"Oh, Donna told you? Did she also tell you she thinks I'm paranoid?"

"Not in so many words, but…"

"I don't know what to tell you, Doctor. I have stood at that bus stop _a lot_ over the past six months, ever since moving into this flat, and I've absently studied the pavement and whatnot… I swear, I would have seen an engraved panel before now. I know, the idea that it just appeared overnight is ridiculous, especially since it looks like it's been there a really long time…"

"No, no, it's not ridiculous," he said. "I'm looking at this BBC website, and there's a few words about the time capsule… it's weird."

"What's weird about it?"

"I can't explain it, exactly," he told her, staring at the screen with unease.

She was quiet for a few moments, and looked at him gravely. "Is it a Time Lord thing?"

He looked up at her and sucked in air through his teeth. "Maybe."

"I knew it!" she whispered.

"Could also be a _déjà vu_ thing. Or the beginnings of indigestion, one just never knows."

Then she took a small bite of her sandwich and asked, "Wow, your Time Lord gut can tell by looking at the website?"

"Something might be… _off_. That's all I can tell."

" _Off_ how?"

"I don't know, Martha. And… I could be wrong. The thing that's _off_ , might be me. I could be getting my signals crossed somehow. But preliminary evidence suggests…"

"Something _off,"_ she finished.

He nodded. Then he looked at her… though it was more like he looked _through_ her.

"What?" she asked.

"Donna said there was a Latin inscription on it."

"Yeah, there is."

"Do you know what it said?"

She shook her head. "I don't know Latin. I have it written down, but it's in my bag downstairs."

"No, no, you're missing the point. It was in Latin?"

"Yes."

"You _perceived_ it in Latin?"

"Oh. Yes."

"And didn't understand it?"

"No."

"Yeah, something's wrong. That should have been translated in your head. Your connection with the TARDIS is re-established, so there's no reason why you wouldn't perceive it as English."

"Oh! I didn't think of that!"

"Well, there's clue _numero uno_ that this time capsule thing is hinky. Maybe we delay our departure another day or two, then, while we check this out. I'd bet that if I got within a block of that corner, I'd know for sure whether something is truly, truly wrong."

"It's not more than two and a half blocks from here. Did you leave the flat today?"

"Not really," he answered. "I just went and worked on some stuff in the TARDIS. But tomorrow, you lead the way to the hinky time capsule… thing."

"Okay. And hey, speaking of delaying our departure, my great uncle's funeral is on Friday morning."

"All right. I guess we leave Friday night."

"Sorry."

"It's all right," he shrugged. "Am I coming with you to the funeral?"

"If you wouldn't mind," she said, with an apologetic smile.

He smiled back. "I don't mind."

"My dad says we can tell people whatever we want, including the truth."

He chuckled. "I'm not so sure."

"Me neither," she sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside him. "I think you're a travelling hospital administration consultant of some sort, and we met two years ago. We'd chat and/or flirt each time you'd turn up at Royal Hope, but didn't start 'dating' until six weeks ago."

"A travelling doctor who's been flirting with you for years, and only recently came to his senses?"

"Yeah. Think you can pull it off?"

"I'll give it a go," he said, smirking delightedly.

"Obviously, we only tell the story if anyone asks, and we don't answer questions that no-one asks."

"Obviously."

"Brilliant. Now, what's your name? You can go with John or Smith, but not both. That is, ironically, just too weird."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but the _second_ most common surname in the English-speaking world is Jones," he said. "I don't think that would work. Third is Williams, fourth is Taylor…"

"Ugh… my paternal grandmother's maiden name was Williams, and there's a whole Taylor branch of the family, as well."

"Then we stick with Smith, yeah?"

"Fine."

"Okay, James, Michael, Robert and David Smith are historically the most common names in the English-speaking world."

"You don't look like a James, a Michael, or a Robert," she said, dismissively. Then, she looked him over. "And definitely not a David."

"The most common first name on this planet is Mohammed."

"Don't even joke about that."

"Come on, Mohammed Smith. No one will suspect a thing."

"That's… _got_ to be wrong. At the very least, culturally insensitive somehow."

He laughed. "Well, what do you want from me? I'm never going to 'look like' any name to you, because you already know me too well."

She sighed. "Weirdly, I do think of you as John Smith, if you're not just _the Doctor."_

"It's how you first knew me."

"Fine, you can be John Smith. Or… just _John_ unless someone asks for your surname, but why would they? And we'll just say your nickname is _the Doctor_ , because… what?"

"Hospital administration consultant? Clearly, I'm a fixer. PR for malpractice suits, playing the politics, quieting rumours, cooking the books, hiring specialists where needed…"

"Okay, good," she said. "But that makes you sound shady."

"So does _alien troubleshooter._ And as a consultant, I'm not shady, just clearly _very_ good at my job," he vamped. Then he set her laptop on the nightstand, and took her by the arm, pulling her towards him. He arranged her across his legs, facing him, knees on either side. In the process, her towel was made redundant by gathering round her waist, so he took it and threw it to the floor. "But you, Martha Jones, _you_ know that I'm not shady."

"Actually... well, you're a little shady," she protested, all good-naturedly, of course.

"No, the phrase you're looking for is, _man of action._ "

She laughed. "Wow, now… _that's_ laying it on thick."

"But am I wrong?"

"You are not," she told him, with another slightly ridiculous giggle.

She leaned forward and kissed him, mostly to stifle the next wave of adolescent giggles, just below the surface.

He turned her over on her back quite suddenly, and she stifled yet another ecstatic laugh, even as she began to help him out of his jacket and shirt, because part of her still could not believe this was happening.

* * *

 **Not exactly a cliffhanger, but rather, a silly, shippy end to Martha's very long day. Tee hee!**

 **And hey, if you're reading/following, only fair to review, yeah? Thanks! :-D**


	3. Chapter 3

**More domestic bliss for our trio and a quick peek into the TARDIS.**

 **Oh, and some plot unfolding, too. Can't forget that bit. ;-)**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

THREE

The Doctor and Martha came downstairs just before eight the next morning, and found Donna sitting in the breakfast nook, by the window, having tea. She was reading the paper, and intermittently watching Martha's next-door neighbour prune her rose bushes.

"Good morning, you two," she said. "Martha, thank you again for letting me stay here. Do you know how long it's been since I've had a peaceful morning just to sit and read the paper? In a home that doesn't have Harvest Gold teapots on the wallpaper, and no one is screaming at me?"

"I have no idea, but I can imagine," Martha told her, with a chuckle. "And you're welcome."

"So," Donna said, sprightly, turning to the Doctor. "When do we leave?"

"Er, Friday night."

"Friday night?" she asked, a bit incredulous. "How did that happen?"

"Sorry," Martha said, moving round to plug in the teapot again. "My great uncle passed away a couple days ago and the funeral is on Friday."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Were you close?"

"My dad was close with him," Martha sighed. "Anyway, he was in his eighties, and he'd lived a very full life."

"Also," the Doctor added, digging into the bread box for something to toast. "I think we should look into this time capsule thing."

"You do?" Donna asked him, looking at Martha with surprise.

"Yeah. I looked at the website last night, and… it was hinky."

"Hinky how?"

"I dunno," he told her. "Just a bit weird. Made me uneasy enough that I'm going to go check it out today."

"In that case," Donna said, rifling through the pile of newsprint in front of her. "You might want to have a look at this."

She handed him a section of the news, covering the time capsule. There was a photograph of a man, rather awkwardly standing at the corner of Earl's Court and Bolton Gardens, waving to the camera. He was plump, with slicked-back hair and a moustache, wearing an old-fashioned double-breasted pin-striped suit, with black and white saddle shoes.

"Mr. Buford S. Greene," the Doctor read aloud, scrutinising the page. "Now, there's a hell of a name. Who is this guy? He looks like one of those Fat Cat caricatures."

Martha peeked over his shoulder. "Head of PR for Burch and Bradley, a mergers and acquisitions firm."

"What exactly do they _merge_ and _acquire_?" asked Donna.

"Well, pieces of businesses and business ventures," the Doctor mused. "As I understand it, most of the time, mergers and acquisitions is a _department_ of a larger firm – like H.C. Clements. But this must be one of those outfits that buys and fixes up companies, or, like I said, pieces of them, and sells them off at a profit. They'll buy up the interest in an arm of a firm that didn't go successfully, things like that."

"So, what interest do they have in a time capsule?" Martha wondered.

"It says here, they're the ones that buried it," the Doctor muttered, reading.

"Again, I ask, what interest do they have in a time capsule?" she repeated. "I mean, why would a firm like that bury one? In 1938?"

"Good question," he sighed. "I'm going to get your laptop."

"Okay. Toast?" she asked.

"Yeah, thanks."

"Donna? Toast?" Martha offered.

"I've already had some yoghurt," Donna replied. "And some fruit. Oh, I'll… erm, replace them."

Martha chuckled. "Oh, please. You're my guest."

She tossed two slices of bread in the toaster, then turned to get the butter from the fridge. The two of them waited in silence for the toast to pop, and/or for the Doctor to return...

His voice rang out a minute later, "Oh yeah, this website is hinky too."

He was bounding down the stairs in his trainers, with the open laptop in his hands.

"Again with the hinky," Donna commented.

"I have a highly-refined hinky detector," the Doctor muttered, clicking about, and sitting down at the breakfast bar.

"Though, not _that_ refined, because you can't even explain it," Martha pointed out.

"Oi," he said to her with a frown. "I'm getting there."

Martha put all her weight on one hip, and waited. Meanwhile, Donna brought her tea and came over to the bar to sit beside the Doctor, and read over his shoulder.

"Ooh, he's right," Donna said, with surprise in her voice, as she looked at the Burch and Bradley website. "It's kind of weird. Like, aesthetically, it's fine, it works, but… I dunno, there's something underlying it. Like, something with the photos, or... something. It's unsettling."

Martha frowned. The toast popped up. Martha busied herself buttering it, then dropping two more slices into the apparatus, while she listened to the ensuing conversation.

The Doctor began reading aloud from the website's text. " _Burch and Bradley are the pinnacle firm in the pitch of mergers and acquisitions, in the London."_

"In _the_ London?" Martha asked.

"Hold on, how come I've never heard of them? I mean, I've worked for a lot of the top firms in this city – law firms, architecture firms, accounting, IT, you name it. I feel like I'd at least have _heard_ of the… what is it? The _pinnacle_ in mergers and acquisitions. Wouldn't I?"

"Probably," the Doctor confirmed.

"Well, yeah," Martha agreed. "I mean, if you're a temp, and you've done top-floor jobs with myriad different types of companies, and Burch and Bradley is leading mergers and acquisitions, dealing with all sorts of different businesses, and pieces of businesses, then… wouldn't they have their fingers in _some_ pie, _somewhere_ that you'd have seen it."

"Right?" Donna asked, loudly, gesturing emphatically.

Then the Doctor continued to read, " _We perform our affairs expediently, scrupulously and with supreme translucence."_

"Do they mean transparency?" Martha asked.

"Probably," he said. "I mean, I'm no Brit, but does it sound to you like someone whose native language is not English might have written this?"

"Yeah, definitely," Donna agreed. "It's stilted, and just… weird. Shouldn't it say, _we conduct our business efficiently, ethically and with the utmost transparency?_ Or something like that?"

"That sounds better to me," Martha said.

The Doctor frowned at the screen. "It's like someone went at this thing with a thesaurus, and no intrinsic knowledge of context or connotation."

"So whoever wrote it isn't from around here," Martha offered.

"Wouldn't the PR person do that? I mean, this is the landing page of their main website. It's the first thing, presumably, the public is going to see and read."

"I could ask Tish," Martha offered. "But yeah… that makes sense."

"But if their PR guy doesn't know English very well…" Donna began.

"So, let's find out," the Doctor said, his fingers flitting over the keys now.

"What're you doing?" Donna wondered.

"I'm Googling Buford S. Greene," he said. Then after a pause, he said, "Apparently, he's from Bristol."

"Bristol?" Martha asked. "Are you sure?" She came around the breakfast bar to look.

"This is him, yeah? Same guy we saw in the paper?" the Doctor asked her, indicating the photo on the people-finder website.

"Yeah," she agreed. "So, he's English."

"And yet, somehow, can't get the intricacies of the English language right. Or at the very least, speaks English really, really awkwardly," Donna pointed out.

"What about the company's CEO?" Martha wondered.

"Good question," said the Doctor, just before trying the same process on the CEO of Burch and Bradley.

"Cyril H. Tippington?" Martha exclaimed with a smile, watching the Doctor work. "Now that just sounds like someone who's trying way too hard to sound British! That's like, the name of a stuffy little mouse with a monocle in a Disney film!"

"I'm afraid I would have to agree," the Doctor muttered. "Though the bit about the monocle is a bit too oddly specific."

The screen showed an error message.

"Wow," said the Doctor. "Not only can he not be Googled, but your computer, Martha, doesn't even like me looking for him."

There was a few moments' silence, and then, the Doctor said, beginning with a heavy sigh, "I suppose it's possible that Martha simply missed that engraved slab of stone for six months, and then just _happened_ to notice it yesterday. And I suppose it's possible that Burch and Bradley really _are_ pioneers in mergers and acquisitions, and that they just chose a bizarre place to bury a time capsule in 1938, and that Buford S. Greene is just not very savvy with language, or someone who isn't savvy with English wrote that website landing page, and Greene just didn't proofread, and Mr. Tippington just isn't on the grid, and it's all on the straight and narrow, but…"

"…not bloody likely?" Donna asked.

"In a nutshell."

He then reached dramatically into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and extracted the sonic screwdriver. He made a few clicks, and returned to the Burch and Bradley website. He made a few adjustments to the tool, and when he aimed it at the computer screen, the thing made a sound that began as normal, then ramped up to a piercing, high-pitched wail within a few seconds. The Doctor took his thumb off the button and looked at the website with disdain.

"Oi! What is that about?" Martha practically shouted, covering her ears.

"This website is fake."

"Fake? What do you mean, fake?"

"Well, not fake, per se, but it was artificially generated by a machine, somewhere other than on Earth."

" _Somewhere other than on Earth?_ " Donna repeated.

"That's what I said."

"Oh, great," Martha sighed. "Well, I guess, such is life with you."

"Ladies, it's time to bring in the big guns," he said, standing up from the stool, and putting the laptop to sleep.

"You're not the big guns?" Donna asked.

"Not always," he said. "Because we still haven't asked the TARDIS to inspect things for us."

"Ah," Donna conceded.

The Doctor headed out of the kitchen and down the hallway, and out through the back door. Martha and Donna followed, and within a few moments, found themselves striding into the TARDIS.

He positioned himself at the computer on the console, and also spoke to his trusted vessel, patting her time rotor. "Burch and Bradley," he said to her. "Did such a company exist in London in 1938?" At the same time, he typed an inquiry of some sort, on the keyboard, then waited.

Results shone on the screen within five seconds. Though they were in Gallifreyan, both women attempted to learn something by looking over the Doctor's shoulder.

"Well, what does it say?" Donna asked.

"It says Burch and Bradley did not exist in 1938, in spite of the fact that the company's website says they were founded in 1936. Burch and Bradley is an artificially-generated name and info scrim."

"What's an info scrim?" Martha wondered.

"It's a sheet of information, concealing something behind it," he said. "Every planet, every society has its way of conveying information, news, et cetera. For the Figland Sorgons of Fexel 5, it's these tiny discs that get delivered to homes every day, from various sources. For Cybermen, it's hourly uploads. For humans in London at this time in history, it's the internet. A smart machine somewhere in the universe did its homework, and worked out that if someone were to implant some sort of _operation_ on planet Earth, and build a front for it, there would need to be a website, in order to make it convincing."

"Oh," Martha commented. "That is smart."

"Okay, we're dealing with something extraterrestrial," the Doctor said, running one hand through his hair. "And probably with someone, or something, that has at least rudimentary time-travel. Or, time-dropping. Which means that maybe they can't travel in time, but they can _put things_ in different places throughout time, or _take things_ in the same way."

"Does that narrow it down at all?" Donna asked.

"Somewhat, but it would help if I knew… oh! Martha, you said you wrote down that Latin phrase, yeah?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Want me to go get it?"

"Yes! Maybe it will tell us something about who they are!"

"Back in a mo'," she said, jogging out the TARDIS door. Within thirty seconds she was back, holding a small piece of paper in her hand. She handed it to the Doctor.

" _1938, in septuaginta annis, et tempus advenit responsio,"_ he read aloud. Then he fell silent, and stared at the paper

"What's wrong? What does it mean?" she asked, after a longer-than-average pause.

"It means _in seventy years, the time of answering arrives."_

"That sounds ominous somehow," she whispered.

"To say the least," he confirmed.

* * *

 **All righty! Thanks for reading! Drop me a line, let me know your thoughts in the form of a review.**


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR

As it turned out, Julia Swayles' horrible flu did not abate overnight, so Martha agreed to work two more shifts for her.

"Might as well, since we're in town until Friday," she shrugged. "Right?"

"Your choice," the Doctor told her, with a smile. "Donna and I can come with you to the bus stop, and look at the Latin slab."

Martha sighed. "It makes me nervous to hear you say that. Part of me thinks it won't be there when we get there."

"Oof. If that's the case, then the whole thing is even more serious than we thought. We might then be dealing with a localised time loop, or a time cone. Societies with time-dropping abilities often use loops and cones because they aren't sure how else to conceal things... hopefully, if that's the case, no one will accidentally fall through it, and wind up in medieval Japan or something..."

"Oh, great," Donna chirped. "Thanks for that. Go on, now Martha. Go do your very difficult job with a clear head."

Martha chuckled. "I'm just going to go get changed," she said.

* * *

The trio arrived at the corner of Earl's Court Road and Bolton Gardens approximately twenty minutes later, and as usual, the bench was filled already with commuters.

"Oh my God," Donna hissed, as they were crossing the street toward the desired bus stop. As she said this, she slapped Martha's arm subtly several times, and nodded toward a cluster of men standing near the trees where the stone slab was. They were talking in low tones, and two of the men were wearing standard business attire, appropriate for the early twenty-first century, one of whom appeared to be carrying the plans for something, rolled up under his arm.

But it was the third man that had caught Donna's attention. He was plump, though wearing a loose-fitting, old-fashioned black and white pin-striped suit, and saddle shoes on his feet. His hair was slicked down and he had rather a comical moustache, they realised, as they set foot on the corner, and casually attempted to act like they were simply waiting for the bus.

"Buford S. Greene," Martha whispered, trying not to watch the man.

The Doctor had clearly registered it all, and was now searching the border between concrete and trees for the Latin-inscribed slab in question, while keeping one eye on the three men. The panel was there, of course, and as soon as he saw it, he understood why Martha had said that it looked as though it had been there for decades… but clearly hadn't.

He gave his Companions a knowing look, that told them he _felt_ something when he looked at it.

"Hinky?" Martha whispered.

"Hinky of the highest order," he whispered back. "Time-Lord-level hink."

Much to Martha's dismay, the bus came quickly today, and she was forced to board it, and head to work for another twelve-, possibly sixteen-hour shift on behalf of her sick friend.

"Go," Donna said, seeing the reluctance on her face. "Go do some good. We'll keep you posted, and won't do anything pulse-poundingly dangerous without you."

"Better not," Martha said with mock seriousness. She waved at the Doctor and stepped aboard the large red vehicle, then watched as the corner disappeared into the distance.

That was when the Doctor and Donna realised that it was a bit out-of-the-ordinary that they were still standing there, while the bus was peeling away from the kerb. They looked at each other, and then, having a similar thought, glanced at the men in suits.

Yep, they were being watched.

"Don't let them see your face," he advised Donna quietly.

"Why?"

"Just don't!"

She sighed with exasperation, and went inside the bus shelter when she could see, but not hear them. Most of her face was obscured by a movie poster stuck to the glass, but she could peer through a slat, and had a good view of all four men.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" the Doctor, true to form, bellowed. "I take it you are the wonderful folks responsible for this time capsule project."

A man in a tan suit, with light-coloured hair and a sour expression, blinked uncomfortably at them. He attempted a smile, and then asked, in a tightly-wound voice that left no question as to the man's feelings on the Doctor's demonstrative curiosity, "And you would be?"

That's when the comical character with the saddle shoes stepped between the Doctor and the man in tan. "Now, now, Fulton, that's no kind of courtesy in the face of public interest." He smiled at the Doctor and extended his hand. "I'm Buford S. Greene, head of PR for Burch and Bradley. Please excuse my colleague, as he has no _savoir-faire._ "

"Oh, that's all right," the Doctor said, shaking Mr. Greene's hand. "I'm a bit of a socially blunt instrument myself, at times."

And while the Doctor and Greene were gripping hands, in the split second just before they released, Donna saw something pass between them. In their eyes. In their fake smiles. In their impossible clutches on one another's digits. It was a knowing, an understanding of some sort…

She knew that the Doctor was onto Buford S. Greene, but could the reverse be true?

When the two men in pin-stipes let go, the shorter, stouter of the two asked cordially, "And so, to echo the tactless Mr. Fulton's question, only in a much more artful way, who might you be, sir?"

The Doctor replied, "Smith. John Smith. My friends and I have just heard of this time capsule business in the news, and let me tell you what: it's just fascinating! Thought we'd pop by, and see it for ourselves."

Greene laughed. "Well, at the moment, there's nothing more to _see_ than a slab of rock," he said. "If you come back in a week, there will be much more to see."

"A week?" asked the Doctor. "A week from today? That's when you're set to open the capsule?"

"That's right."

"For a crowd, yeah? Gathered here, on the corner, raptly attentive to what might be found in that pod… what intriguing artefacts and secrets from seventy years ago might be revealed…"

"That's what we're hoping, yes," replied Greene.

"And also, perhaps, what a mergers and acquisitions firm that didn't exist seventy years ago might want with a time capsule?"

Greene stood up straight and gripped is own lapels. "I'm sure I wouldn't know."

"I'm sure you wouldn't. Will you also be revealing at that time, what the Latin inscription means? I mean, I know it translates to, _in seventy years, the time of answering arrives,_ but what's the significance of it? It's a truly enticing puzzle. I mean, most inscriptions of this sort, say _Let's find out what the future thinks of us,_ or _Let's crack this baby open and see if moths fly out._ But this one… this one is unique. _The time of answering._ "

"As head of PR, it's my job to drum up publicity, that is all," said Greene. Then he attempted to redirect the Doctor's attention to said publicity. "Yesterday's news report was just the beginning. Expect to see adverts soon, on the wire, as well as…"

"Do you mean, on the telly, Mr. Greene?" said a man in a dark blue suit, who had not yet said a word. He turned his attention to the Doctor. "He means, on the television and radio, as well as in print media and the internet. We're planning a promotional _Blitzkrieg_."

The Doctor found this to be very interesting wording.

"Yes, yes," Greene said, sighing. "Television and internet. The two social bastions of the twenty-first century, or so it would seem."

"It would, indeed," the Doctor mused.

Greene smiled, recovering his decorum. "I'm an old-fashioned sort of bloke."

"Yeah, I'm getting that."

"I suspect you're a bit old-fashioned yourself, eh, Mr. Smith?" The veneer of the PR expert faded for just a second, and the man's eyes flashed with suspicion.

"That I am," the Doctor replied, with more calm, but with unmistakable recognition of the other man's tone.

"It's just that I don't hold with this modern _mass media_ business," Mr. Greene explained whimsically. "Just give me a good, hot-off-the-presses newspaper – that's the thing for me!"

"I see. Quite an unusual point of view for the head of PR for London's _pinnacle_ M&A firm."

"It takes all manner of sailor to navigate a ship, Mr. Smith."

"Evidently," the Doctor said.

* * *

The Doctor eventually made his excuses, and he walked away. Donna waited a couple of minutes, then left the bus shelter, taking care to keep her hair hanging in her face as she walked passed the three men. She didn't reckon it would be a problem - they were now standing a good ten metres away.

She found the Doctor around the corner, leaning against a building, waiting for her. The two of them now began heading back to Martha's flat.

Donna commented, "You've got to stop using that _John Smith_ alias. It's bloody obvious what you're doing."

"Martha said I could keep it," he responded, not really thinking the comment through.

"What?" she asked, nonplussed.

"Thing is, Donna, his recognising me could not have been genuine," he said.

Switching gears, she asked, "How d'you mean?"

"He's not a Time Lord," the Time Lord reasoned. "So, he couldn't just, you know, look at me, or shake my hand and know that I am one. Only one of my own could do that… and even then, it's not reliable. That means there has to be something else about this guy…"

"He knew you're a Time Lord?"

"He knew _something_ ," said the Doctor. "He's got acute senses. Unnaturally acute, somehow."

"And you used your own unnaturally acute senses to sense this?"

"Sort of," he told her. "You might've missed it, but there was a moment when…"

"…when you each realised that the other knew something about the game?"

"Yeah," he said, with surprise.

"No, I caught it. It was like a neon sign, that."

"Oh. Well, what do you make of it?"

"What _could_ I make of it?" she asked, with a chuckle. "Just what I saw. The two of you, locking hands, fake-smiling, recognising pretty clearly that something is amiss. He saw something in you, you saw something in him. End of. At least from my point of view."

"I'm genetically programmed for the hairs on my neck to stand on-end when I see someone like him."

"Someone like him?"

"Someone who is out of their time."

"I see. So perhaps he is a time-traveller, and not just a dropper, as you said."

"But _he_ cannot have been genetically programmed in the same way," the Doctor mused, barely hearing Donna's commentary at all now. He walked up the steps of Martha's flat, and without thinking, sonicked open the front door (instead of using the key he'd been given), stepping aside to let Donna walk through it. When he shut it behind him, he leaned against it, and stared off into the distance for a few moments, then said, "Which means, he must have _technology._ "

"I don't follow."

"He can't be a Time Lord," he said. "He can't have the same Spidey senses as I have. So he must have be able to _sense_ me, by using some sort of technology."

"Oh. Well, blimey, who the hell could forge technology like that?"

"The Time Lords."

Feeling silly, she repeated, "Oh."

"Just because my people are gone, doesn't mean our know-how hasn't survived in the form of pirated technology and literally _stolen_ pieces of equipment."

"Oh. Uh-oh."

"Yeah," he mused.

"So now what?" she asked.

He made eye-contact for the first time since they'd walked away from the time capsule corner. "I'm going skulking.

"Skulking?"

"Yes, skulking. It means sneaking. Gathering reconnaissance without being seen."

She gave him a tedious expression that could have frozen a lake. "I know what skulking means."

"Then, why did you ask?"

"Clearly, I was incredulous," she told him, emphatically.

"Why?"

"Because it's a daft idea. Shouldn't we just wait and see what happens when they open the thing?"

He frowned. "Really, Donna?"

"Okay, okay, even worse idea. But what do you think you're going to find out? More importantly, what's all this _you_ business. What about me? I'm coming with you!"

"I don't know what I'm going to find out – that's why I'm going. And you're not coming."

"I've skulked with you before!"

"But you're not coming this time."

"Give me one good reason why not!" she demanded, hands on hips.

"You haven't thought this through, have you?"

"Do I ever?" she asked, sarcastically.

"It's an M&A firm, or at least something fronting as one."

"Yeah?"

"Which one of the three of us, you, me, or Martha, would be the best-equipped to go undercover there, if need be, in the next few days?"

"Me, of course," she told him, without hesitation. "I hope you're not trying to tell me different."

"If you go skulking with me today, and we get caught, and you're seen, then we've lost a hugely valuable angle that we could have played in the future."

"Oh."

A pause while he examined her face. "We good?"

"Yeah. As long as you're not shining me on, Alien Boy."

"I'm not," he told her, seriously. "Now, I've got to get back to that corner before Nigel H. Bumblebee leaves with his cronies."

"You mean Buford S. Greene."

"Yeah, like it makes a difference," he quipped, slipping back out the front door.

* * *

 **All righty - not hugely exciting, but some plot advancement happening! Thanks for staying with me - please leave a review! :-D**


	5. Chapter 5

**The Doctor skulks. There's nothing terribly exciting here, just building intel and planting seeds for things to come…**

 **Hope you enjoy! (I'll try to update again very soon!)**

* * *

FIVE

Buford S. Greene and his "colleagues" walked, chatting, into an alley behind Park House, the high-rise of student housing on the corner of Earl's Court and Bolton Gardens. The Doctor followed behind them, of course, careful not to be seen, and was not surprised that the trio climbed into a vintage automobile. The car was big and heavy, blue, with literally tonnes of personality. The Doctor recognised as a 1938 Ford.

The car began to drive off, and the Doctor realised he hadn't completely thought this through.

Several ideas passed through his mighty brain in a few split seconds.

 _Can I hide on the bumper below the back window without getting killed? Maybe, maybe not. Ridiculous risk. Daft idea. Been watching too many Hollywood films with Companions. Possibly also too many cartoons._

 _It is rather a distinctive car – I could go back and get Martha's car, and try to find them, and follow them._

 _If all else fails, I could use the council's vehicle registration database to find out who owns the car, and just, you know... turn up._

 _Come to that, I could just run the licence plate numbers through the system and find them out. Blimey, Doctor, sometimes I wonder if you don't just try to make things complicated on purpose sometimes. What, for fun?_

 _Anyhow, it's amply clear that Mr. Greene does not belong in this time and place, and I would find it very surprising if he actually worked at Burch and Bradley, even if Burch and Bradley actually existed…_

 _Doctor! Do something!_

So, he did what he always does in case of emergency: he aimed his sonic screwdriver at the big blue car.

And he was glad to have done so, because as the car passed, he discovered from the sonic's readings that the vintage Ford possessed a SatNav system. He aimed again, and this time, uploaded the car's particular SatNav signal into the screwdriver.

"Ah," he said aloud to himself, with delight. "Classic elegance, modern convenience. Very nice, Mr. Greene. I travel much in the same way."

He pulled Martha's old mobile phone from his pocket, and now aimed the screwdriver at it, synchronising the two devices, and allowing him to follow the car's Sat Nav signal via the phone. He then stepped out onto Bolton Gardens, and hailed a taxi, though it took a couple of minutes to find an empty one.

No matter – the Doctor had all the info he needed, as far as where the blue car was going, and how to follow it. He directed the driver as they went, and eventually they arrived at a short, squat, fairly unremarkable office building, incongruously placed in the suburbs. Luckily, the blue car was big and slow, and he was able to watch them park on the street, all disembark, then enter the building through a side door.

He paid the driver, and jogged in behind the mysterious party of three (sonicking himself through the door, of course).

He saw Greene and the two others down the hall, walking away from him. Almost immediately when he entered the building, he heard Greene's voice say, "Hang on, lads." With that, he gestured for his colleagues to move aside, and he peered down the hall. The Doctor had just enough time to duck behind a water cooler.

"What's the matter?" asked the man in the tan suit.

"I'm not sure," said Greene, searching the space with his eyes. "There's something… hm. Never mind."

The trio turned a corner and proceeded down a hallway. The Doctor followed, and looked side to side, and made note of what he saw. On the right, a conference room, on the left, the gents. Further down, on the right, a couple of offices in which people sat at desks talking on the phone. On the left, the ladies'. They then found a stair case at the end of the corridor, and went up one flight, from the ground floor to the first floor.

The entire first floor was walled with glass – another conference room, about ten offices, and a couple of shared work-areas – and the Doctor groaned inwardly. He stayed down on the landing, realising it would be exceedingly difficult to hide in this place – today, or any day. He stood on the railing and chanced to peek over the rim of the first floor, and saw the three men head into a modern-looking conference room, where a woman in a suit sat waiting for them. They shut the door, and the Doctor was totally unable to hear their conversation. He tried using his stethoscope against the floorboards, but it didn't work – and he was risking being seen.

Mr. Greene went and stood on the same side of the table as the woman, and the two modern gents stood on the other side. From the looks of things, the woman was the boss (though the Doctor wondered just how their overtly-British CEO, Cyril H. Tippington, fit into all this, assuming that such a flesh-and-blood entity even existed). She listened to the two men talk, with her arms folded across her chest, and an annoyed, sceptical look on her face. The Doctor was not particularly adept at merely incidental lip-reading, and he couldn't really see the two men's faces anyhow – he reckoned he'd learned everything he was going to learn from this interaction. Unless he could find another way upstairs… a passage that leads behind the conference room, or something…

He had just decided to go back and explore the ground floor a bit more, see if there was a secondary stairwell, when Mr. Greene leaned a bit to his left, and seemed to look beyond the conference room wall/window, directly in the Doctor's direction. His movement was sudden, as though he'd seen something move where it shouldn't. The man had a quizzical, confused look on his face, like he wasn't sure what he was looking for, or feeling.

The Doctor reckoned that he indeed _wasn't_ sure.

That's when the Doctor retreated. Clearly, Mr. Greene could "sense" him; it had happened on the corner in Martha's neighbourhood, and it was happening again. He still reckoned it was probably borrowed technology, and not an innate skill. Nevertheless, if the Doctor was going to work out what these guys were up to, he was going to need more stealth.

He walked back down the hall on the ground floor, past the restrooms, and turned right, to visit a part of the building he hadn't seen yet. Just as he rounded the corner, he heard the voices of the two men who had been working with Buford S. Greene. The Doctor froze where he was, and hid, listening to them chatter. Suddenly, heard a door open, and the chatter faded out, as the men went through. Their voices echoed as they did so, and the Doctor guessed they'd gone to the gents'.

He tried again, extracting his stethoscope, pressing the auscultator against the door. This time, he could hear everything loud and clear, including the charming sound of urine hitting porcelain.

"I dunno," one man said. "I have no bloody idea what she's thinking."

"Me neither," said the other. "How the fuck did you and I get pulled into this thing?"

"Dunno that either. I mean, what the hell is that nutter on about? What'd he say yesterday? A different plane? Out of sync? Reality oscillates? What's that noise?"

"No bloomin' idea. Sounds like a bunch of _Star Trek_ nerdbabble."

There was a pause, then the first guy spoke again. "So the meeting's been moved to Monday."

"Yeah, and don't that just beat all," said the second. "I was supposed to go to my kid's school, for this special performance thing. He's supposed to be dressed up like a squirrel - my wife made the costume and everything. Now I gotta be up there in the fishbowl, listening to His Nibs talk rubbish."

"Why is your kid's school having a performance at nine a.m.?"

"Don't ask me, I didn't decide that."

They then flushed their urinals. The Doctor stepped back from the door in response to the onslaught of deafening white noise coming through the stethoscope. And as he did, he considered the hallway again. Gents' and ladies' side-by-side, and a conference room upstairs. He couldn't be seen or felt here again – he was sure that next time, Greene would catch him - and he only had a few seconds to get out of sight. But the Doctor was quick, and a plan was hatching.

* * *

Donna Noble spent the morning, after the Doctor left, tidying the parlour of Martha's flat, where she had slept, compiling a grocery list, and prowling around the organic market nearby. She would have liked to visit her grandfather, but she knew that her mum was off from work today, and that was one shrill bollocking she just didn't need.

Briefly, she stared out the back window at the TARDIS, and allowed herself to feel wistful, and to long for an escape, to blast out of here and into the open arms of Time and Space with her partners in adventure, but…

She shook it off. She didn't want to feel cooped-up here. She wanted to feel genuinely grateful to Martha for the respite from living in a sardine tin with her mother. And, she didn't want to get too attached to the idea of travelling in the TARDIS again, as she still wasn't entirely certain that she would be totally welcome in it now. The Doctor and Martha had each other – in _every_ sense of the word now – and they would, of course, say that she was their trusted friend and Companion, and that they couldn't do without her.

But what _could_ they say? _Donna, we really want the freedom to explore our Essential Couplehood as nature intended: in the midst of outer space, naked in the common spaces of our living quarters. Also, we were hoping to panel all of the walls and ceiling of your bedroom with mirrors and install a sex swing in the middle. Sorry. You'll have to go back to your dead-end job temping… we hope you find a bloke who isn't a total wanker real soon, so you don't have to continue taking verbal abuse from your mother, with whom you live, even though you're nearly forty…_

By early afternoon, Donna reckoned it had become unhealthy for her to left to her own thoughts.

Fortunately, she had plans. It was one o'clock in the afternoon when she strode into the A&E Department of Royal Hope hospital with a large tote bag in her hand.

"May I help you?" asked the security guard, stationed at the desk out front.

"I'm wondering if I might speak to one of your doctors," she said. "Martha Jones?"

"What's this about?"

"It's a personal matter," Donna said. After the guard's eyebrow went up, she said, "I just want to invite a friend to lunch! Is that all right with you?"

"I'll see if she's available," the man replied. "Have a seat."

Donna sat, while the guard muttered something into the phone.

About two minutes later, Martha walked through a set of double-doors. She still had a surgical mask on her face, and her feet were covered with what looked like little blue shower caps.

"Hey, Donna," she said, pulling her mask down. "What brings you here?"

"Oh, my God, I didn't get you out of surgery, did I?" Donna asked, flogging herself, just a bit.

"No, no, I finished up about ten minutes ago, and I was only assisting anyhow."

"Thank goodness. I came to see if you'd like to have lunch together."

Martha smiled. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"It's the twenty-first century. Why not?" Donna chuckled. Then she said, "But, listen, I understand, if you're busy. I tried calling your mobile, but you didn't answer – go figure – so I decided to take a guess at when your lunch break might be. How did I do?"

"Really well," Martha told her. "Lunch was my next order of business. Where would you like to go? There's a couple of good places to get a curry nearby."

Donna held up her tote. "I went to the market earlier, and made us some sandwiches."

"You didn't also replace my yoghurt, did you?"

"I sort of did, yes. And the fruit. And the popcorn and the tea."

"Donna! Stop acting like a lodger. You don't have to do that!"

"Anyway!" Donna cut across. "Is there a terrace or something where we could…"

"Yeah, there is," Martha said. "On the third floor. Just go up in the lift, turn to your left and go through the doors there, and there's a public lounge. Part of it is outside. I'll meet you there, yeah? I'm going to go put on some clothes that are not blue pyjamas."

"Great."

"Donna? Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," Donna assured her. "It's just… the Doctor's gone skulking, and I thought there were some things we should talk about. You know, woman to woman."

"Good," Martha said. "I think so too."

* * *

 **Some girl talk on the horizon?**

 **Thanks for reading, y'all. Don't forget to leave a bit of feedback! :-)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A few years back, there was a "test" developed, to determine how sound a movie/tv show/story was, from a feminist standpoint - I can't remember what the test was called. It had to do with how much time female characters spend** _ **not**_ **talking to male characters, and not talking** _ **about**_ **male characters. (Incidentally, when it was applied to** _ **Doctor Who**_ **, the RTD companions scored quite a bit higher than the Moffat companions, with Donna at the top.) Overall, though, the show did not pass, because the Doctor was (at that point, thus far) a male character, his presence was pervasive, and** _ **everyone**_ **spends a lot of time talking to or about him. That is, of course, when** _ **he**_ **is not talking!**

 **I bring this up because this chapter does not pass muster. I've been looking forward (as have some of you) to Donna and Martha establishing their own rapport. They definitely need to do this, and do it separately from the Doctor. But as I worked through this chapter, I realised that before any of that can happen, they have to try and iron out some Doctor-related issues first. Also, in light of things to come in this story, this is a conversation definitely worth having!**

 **Not that anyone asked.**

 **Also, please notice some nuance in Donna's character. Yes, she's very straightforward and confident on the surface, but once in a while, we see her insecurities peek out. "Why'd you say Miss? Do I look single?" ( _Planet of the Ood_ ). We all know that Donna is vulnerable (as are we all), and I feel that her bravado is, in large part, a mask. Anyway, in this chapter (and others), she's doing and saying little things that reveal her insecurity.**

 **Thanks for reading – don't forget to let me know what you think!**

* * *

SIX

In a public lounge in Royal Hope Hospital, Donna found a table in the shade on the balcony. A few minutes later, Martha, looking freshly scrubbed, slid in across from her.

Donna handed her an airtight plastic box with the lunch she had prepared for her.

"Ooh! Fresh berries and two kinds of cheese. And… is this watercress?" Martha asked, inspecting her sandwich. "With roasted turkey on brioche?"

"Yes," Donna chirped. "And I got the gourmet mayonnaise that my mother won't allow in her house because she says it's a bloody waste of money."

"But it's not! There's a _huge_ difference!"

"I know!"

"Wow, thank you so much for doing this," Martha said. "I was facing a second day of inexplicably grey chicken in gravy in the hospital canteen, and was considering doing something drastic."

"No problem at all," Donna said. Then, after pause, "All right, tuck in."

Each of them took a few bites, then Martha said, "I'm really glad you're here. I think you're right about us needing to talk."

"Yeah, actually, there's a couple of things I should probably bring up."

"I think I know what you might say. Truth be told, I thought this might happen."

Donna waited, while Martha stared at an unspecified spot on the table, and sighed.

"What? You thought _what_ might happen?" she asked, nervously after Martha said nothing for a while.

"I thought you might be annoyed at me."

"Why in the world?"

"Well, you know… I _am_ a bit of a third wheel," Martha said.

Donna's jaw dropped. "What are you on about, Dr Jones? How on Earth are _you_ the third wheel? I'm the one watching sentimental girly films on the sofa while the two of you are upstairs keepin' the neighbours awake!"

Martha's eyes went wide. "Oh no," she gasped. "Mrs. Finley didn't phone last night, did she?"

"Who's Mrs. Finley?"

"Prickly neighbour. Overly sensitive to noise. Basically can't _ever_ play music in my flat without getting a phone call."

Donna laughed. "No, she didn't ring, I was just making inappropriate innuendos, as I do."

Martha smiled a bit sheepishly. "Sorry. It's just… you and the Doctor were doing fine, travelling, just the two of you, saving families in Pompeii and whatnot, and then suddenly… you know… I crash the party."

Donna laughed. "Oh, hardly, love! I wanted to talk to you about _me_ crashing _your_ party!"

"No, no, no, no," Martha said to her, quite seriously. "Don't give that another thought. Unless _you_ are uncomfortable…"

"With everyone shagging but me? Well… maybe I am, a bit, but it's not like it's a _new_ state of affairs, frankly. All part and parcel of the single life," Donna said, trying not to sound as pathetic as she felt. "I reckon I'll get used to it. I wanted to make sure _you're_ okay with having me about, in such close quarters, what with the new relationship happening and all."

"I'm okay with it, Donna. More than okay."

"You're sure?"

"The Doctor is intense. I'm a little intense, too. Our relationship is intense. I'm not sure we'd survive without a buffer, to be honest," Martha said.

Donna shrugged. "Okay. _Maybe_ I could see that."

"It's the truth."

A pause. "Hm, well, isn't this funny. Each of us thinking that this lunch was to talk about how we might be unwanted."

"How very _womanly_ of us," Martha muttered.

"Really," Donna agreed.

Then Martha frowned. "Come to think of it, shouldn't the Doctor be asking _us_ if _we're_ okay having _him_ about?"

"You'd think he would, just as a courtesy, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, what an oaf," Martha said flatly, sarcastically.

They both laughed a bit.

Then, Donna said, "Martha, really. You didn't truly expect me _not_ to understand, did you? The fact that you belong there? Belong with him?"

"Donna, until six weeks ago, _he_ didn't even understand that."

"Yeah, but he's a moron," replied the ginger, flippantly, taking a bite. Then, with her mouth full, "I mean, he's a genius. But totally clueless."

"You're not entirely wrong there."

"He can work out how to deprogram a computer from eight galaxies away, and force it to counteract its primary function, but he has no idea what's going on in his own life. His own heart. Hearts. Plural."

"He's a man," Martha shrugged. "I mean, I don't want to be sexist, but in my experience, they're all a little that way."

"That's true," Donna conceded. "I've met more than one bloke who had to be hit over the head with it. The Doctor is hardly unique there. I mean, you should have seen him in Mallorca, from my p.o.v. He really thought he was just knocking about with you, only to save you from a dangerous alien! And before that, when he'd talk about you, he'd get all wistful and emotional… he honestly believed it was all about guilt."

"It was, a bit, I'm sure."

"A bit, yeah, but there was obviously so much more to it. Fortunately, me, I'm good at badgering people. Especially men. They don't know what to do with me."

Martha took a drink of her bottled water, then, "Why do I get the feeling there's a story or two there?"

Donna studied Martha for a few moments. There were actually _a couple_ of things that Donna had wanted to discuss in coming here. One of those things had been covered... for now. Although, she didn't feel that Martha fully appreciated the depth of the complexity of the three of them travelling together. But, far from badgering her, Donna wanted to be delicate with that particular conversation... keep it light, keep it from becoming the only thing they could talk about.

So, she dropped the _third wheel_ train of thought for now. With this line of conversation, Donna saw an opening to begin discussion of _the other_ thing.

"Yeah," Donna said. "I've got a story or two about badgering men. Did the Doctor ever tell you about Lance?"

"Who's Lance?"

"My ex-fiancé."

"Fiancé? You were engaged?"

"Yeah – don't sound so shocked!"

"Sorry."

"Well, I got him to agree to marry me by brute force. I wore him down. I thought I'd finally found my Prince Charming, and I was absolutely terrified of losing him, of going back to being... well, whoever I was before. Donna Noble, single, no money, no ambition, obsessed with celebrity gossip. I wanted to lock him in. Make him say _I do_ so that I would _know_ where he stood, and that he couldn't get away." She chuckled bitterly at the memory. Then she shook it off, and said, "Don't tell the Doctor I told you that, though… I told him that Lance proposed to me so many times, _he_ wore _me_ down."

"You're secret's safe with me," Martha promised. "So what happened? Why'd you call off the wedding?"

"Technically, the wedding was never called off," Donna explained. "Although, it turned out he had been systematically poisoning me."

"What?" Martha shouted.

"He was in cahoots with this giant spider empress who wanted to awaken her offspring and take over the planet."

"Of course," Martha shrugged, rather sardonically. "As spider empresses are wont to do."

"She got Lance to feed me all these particles that act as catalysts for that somehow. By the time the wedding day came, my body was full of the stuff, right? Absolutely riddled with this energy, and buzzing with excitement over the wedding. The particles, I found out later, are attracted to one another, like magnets. They had originated at the dawn of the universe or something, and are all but extinct - they only existed in two places in the universe: in me, and one other place."

"Whoa!"

"So, about eight seconds before I was about to marry that tosser – I mean, I'm literally _walking down the aisle –_ the particles pulled me away from my wedding! I get basically teleported, only to materialise again right next to the only other thing in the universe that harboured the particles."

Martha's eyes were wide. "Which was?"

"The TARDIS console."

Martha's face registered shock, and delight. "And that's how you met the Doctor!"

"Yep," Donna said. "But, funny story, I blamed him, because of course I did. And I found a woman's jacket hanging over the railing, and became convinced he'd killed whoever wore it."

"Rose's jacket?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I suppose if you don't know him, and don't know what the hell is happening…"

"It was terrifying. For about ten minutes. That is, before I warmed to the idea that he was as bloody shocked as I was, and didn't have any interest in hurting me, and probably hadn't killed his ex."

Martha chuckled. "Sometimes _probably_ is the best you can do. But what happened to Lance?"

"He died," Donna said, simply, sadly. "Fell into a bottomless pit."

"A _bottomless pit?_ Literally?"

"Well, it _had_ a bottom, but when the bottom is at the centre of the Earth, that hardly counts, does it?"

"Oh God," Martha groaned.

"It haunts me," Donna said, staring at her plate. "Watching him fall, hearing him scream. I try to tell myself sometimes that he had it coming – the _awful_ things he did to me, and how bloody _mean_ he was to me, after I found out what he'd done. But he was just a daft man who thought he was doing his job… no one had _that_ coming."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Martha said. "Even if you discovered he was an arse later on… you were going to marry him, so you must have loved him."

"I did," Donna admitted. "He was thoughtful and sweet and clever – all a part of the ruse, of course, but still. And he had a stupid sense of humour… I liked that about him, you know? And he was kind of gorgeous. I mean, maybe not in the strictest sense – he wasn't Taye Diggs or anything. But I thought he was the Bee's Knees, as they say."

"Who pushed him into the pit?"

"Why, the spider empress of course," Donna said.

Martha let that line lie there for a moment, trying not to contemplate it too hard, then asked, "Do I dare ask after the spider empress? And her offspring?"

Donna was very glad she had asked. She made square eye-contact with Martha, and reported, "The Doctor drowned them."

"Excuse me?"

"Killed them all. Drained the Thames to do it. It was _horrible_ to watch."

"I remember the Thames getting drained... the Doctor did that? Well, I guess that's not a surprise, but... he did it on purpose?"

"Yeah."

"To drown a bunch of baby aliens?"

"Yeah."

"Our Doctor?"

"Yes, Martha."

"The one that flies the TARDIS?"

"I'm afraid so. What we saw him do in Mallorca is not even on the radar, as far as how dark he can get."

Briefly, Martha's memory flashed upon the Epidromeas alien, who had verily screwed with all of their lives and loves, to the point where the Doctor tricked it into ramming itself into the TARDIS' hardest layer of forcefield, killing it instantly.

Martha squinted. "The Time Lord? The tall guy with the pin-stripes, and the…"

"…and the swagger, and the fast talk, and the hair, and the _first do no harm_ policy? The righteous disdain for genocide? Yeah, Martha, that's him."

"Wow," Martha said, sitting back in her chair.

"The Doctor, on his worst day, is magnetic. Broody, complex, fascinating. On his best day, he's like a shiny thing... like a bauble. Like a diamond ring. He's..." Donna searched for words. "... dazzling and seductive. Not that I want to put too fine a point on that last bit."

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

"Don't tell him I said any of that stuff either."

"Don't worry," Martha lilted with a smirk.

Donna sat forward in her chair, mirroring Martha's sitting back. "The allure of his life is just… _staggering_. Even for me. And to you, he's this valiant, dashing thing, heroic sex-on-legs, and I get that. I mean, I don't get it in the weak-in-the-knees, please-take-me-now sense – he's a bit skinny and bird-like for my taste – but I see what's happening with you. And I just want to make sure you know..."

"I do know, Donna," Martha interrupted, with no hint of irritation. "The reason he _is_ all of those things that you just said, is that he's old, and powerful, and jaded, and really, _really_ dangerous."

Donna smiled. "In a nutshell."

"I know. I've seen the Doctor for what he is. I've seen the damage that life with him can do – just ask my family. My incredibly forgiving family."

"Right."

"Did you know that he and I spent three months in 1913, hiding from shape-shifters very much like the Epidromeas? When it was over, I watched him punish them. Someday, I'll be able to talk about it. They were dangerous, and needed to be neutralised, but..."

"Okay. I should have known."

Martha contemplated for a bit, then, "An acquaintance of ours described him as _fire and ice and rage,_ and I think that in a very real sense, he hit the nail on the head."

"Fire and ice and rage are definitely what I saw, the night he drained the Thames."

"I guess it must seem to you that I'm blinded by the bravado," Martha speculated. "Or the tight suit, or the eyes, or the hair, or the _implausibly_ great sex. I do fancy all those things, but don't get me wrong: I know exactly who I'm dealing with, in that, I will never really know exactly who I'm dealing with. He's got so many sides and layers and nooks and crannies that will always be a mystery to me. Partly because there aren't enough years left in my life for me to learn about all of it."

Donna smiled. "But you love him."

Martha smiled also, reluctantly, and sighed heavily. "Desperately. Even _with_ all the chaos he's caused. Even _with_ the knowledge that he could collapse this galaxy into a black hole if he wanted. Even _with_ all the untold angst he's felt, and is still feeling, over Rose, over the war, and God only knows what else. It's all part of this amazing, wonderful, infuriating package that makes me tingle all over. Wow, I can't believe I just said that out loud."

"Okay, Martha," Donna said. "Fair enough."

"I mean… don't you feel a bit the same way? You love him, and you choose this life with him, even though he's a bit terrifying? Decided that the risk is worth it?"

Reluctantly, Donna admitted, "Yeah, I suppose. I don't love him the way you do, but… yeah."

"Thanks for trying to protect me."

"Some of it is about protecting him, as well."

"Well, thank you for that, too."

"I was thinking a lot about you two while you were in Mallorca, after I'd come home. I thought about how potent it could be for you, all those weeks of pure _Doctor_. How deeply you could dig, and/or fall, how insanely charismatic he is, whether he means to be or not… it's powerful for _me,_ and I've been around the block a few times, and I don't see any sex appeal there. But you... you're a different animal. And you're so young, and..."

"But I'm not naïve. I'm going to be okay."

"I know you're not naïve, and yet… I didn't want you to get in over your head, whatever that might mean. But I knew all along, you're hardly a beginner when it comes to the Doctor, and you're hardly a child."

"Nope. I've got my wits about me," Martha assured her. "But, Donna, don't expect me to be _on my guard._ I'm in this, and for better or worse. I love him, I trust him, I give him my all. Otherwise, why bother?"

"A noble sentiment," Donna said. "And I know noble when I hear it."

The two of them took a few bites in silence, and then, "So… why are you here, and not off with him, skulking?" Martha wondered.

"Didn't want me tagging along."

"Don't you hate when he does that?"

"Ugh, it drives me bloody bonkers."

* * *

 **Thoughts? Feelings? Let me hear them!**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi all! Sorry for the long absence - been traveling overseas! I'll tell you - the Mediterranean hasn't seen the last of me!**

 **Anyway, if you'll recall, Donna and Martha had a conversation in the previous chapter that definitely did not pass the Bechdel test (thank you, reviewers, for reminding me of the name of it!). I've discussed in author's notes before the fact that I think Donna has some deeply-seated personal insecurities, perhaps exacerbated by her experience with Lance. And I don't think these are insecurities that could be reassured away by a woman who is fifteen years younger, and from Donna's point of view, would have no real idea of what she's going through. This is my take on Donna's very complex character, at least from a relationships standpoint.**

 **So, the next couple of chapters might be hard for some readers, but please know this: _I am not, in any way, trying to phase Donna out!_ I meant what I said about exploring the dynamic between the two women! Bear with me - Donna will have her due, in the end!**

 **And so, here we go!**

* * *

SEVEN

Martha Jones, once more, came through the double doors beside the security desk, only it was seven pm. She'd been "cut" two hours before the end of her shift because she'd stayed so late the night before, things were slow tonight, and she was, after all, filling in for a colleague.

She had left her scrubs in her locker – she'd bring them home tomorrow – and decided to simply walk out of there, feeling unencumbered in her street clothes. She wore a black tank top and loose black trousers, with flip-flops on her feet. Her hair was tied up messily on top of her head. She'd phoned ahead to let the Doctor and Donna know she'd be free soon, and was looking forward to settling into some TV with them, or some online gumshoeing.

"Oh! Hi!" she said, surprised to see a very familiar, tall man in pin-stripes standing there when she walked out of A&E. "Fancy seeing you here!"

"I know, it's mad!" he squeaked, to match her tone. He gave her a hug, and kiss on the cheek, and said, "Since you're off early, I thought I'd take you to dinner. How does that strike you?"

"It strikes me well," she answered. "Wow, people I like keep turning up here to feed me."

"Yeah, Donna said you two had lunch, and a bit of a chat," he said, ushering her toward the door leading out of the building.

"Mm," she confirmed. Then, with a delighted, cheeky smile, "Don't bother asking what we talked about…"

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said with a smirk. "I would be loath to do anything to get between you two."

"Yeah, there's a lot of that particular sentiment going around."

"I know." His tone had changed, as they turned right on the sidewalk, and made their way toward the TARDIS, parked across the street.

They didn't say anything while they navigated traffic.

"She and I both feel as though we're imposing," Martha sighed, reaching the sidewalk again.

"You're both wrong, you know."

"Yeah, I think we both know that, intellectually," she said. " _Feelings_ are different, though. And they are stubborn."

Again, there was a few moments of silence, while the Doctor contemplated. Then, "In all seriousness, Martha, is everything okay… on _that_ front?"

"It's hard to say. It didn't really get resolved. It might be a work in progress."

"Okay. I can see that."

"She says she thinks she'll be all right… I don't know her _that_ well, but I wasn't really convinced."

"I got the same impression from her last night when she and I talked. I do know her a bit better than you do, but the thing is, I'm not used to seeing her hold back emotions," he explained. "I mean I don't think I've ever seen her _not_ say exactly what's on her mind. So, if she seems a little _off_ when she talks about it, I don't know if _off_ means that she's stopping herself from saying something she'd like to say, or what. I've no frame of reference."

Martha took a moment to ruminate. "I think, ultimately, it really is going to be okay. Right now, we're in this holding pattern, and we've had this delay from getting out on the road, and we've got all this time to sit around and overthink it. We just need to get in the TARDIS and go… get into a groove. We'll get used to each other, and how things are."

He slid his key into the TARDIS' front lock, and opened the door. The two of them stepped inside.

"So, I'm not just _daft_ to think I can travel with both of you, and everyone will be all shiny and happy?" he asked, walking up the ramp ahead of her. "I mean, on the surface, it sounded like a fine idea because, well… I can't _not_ be with you now, and Donna, she has no interest in me that way. And the two of you seem to get on really well…"

"No, you're not daft to think we can make this work," she assured him, sidling up to the console with him. "But you _are_ daft if you think it won't take some effort, especially on our part – yours and mine."

"I would never think that."

"Speaking of which, you didn't just leave her alone in my flat tonight, so you could take me out to dinner, did you?"

"No, I invited her," he said. "Today I read about this place called Casa Tua, supposed to be amazing Italian food in this cool, rustic cabin-like environment… thought it might be a good time for the three of us."

"But?"

"Her friend Madeleine called and invited her to game night with some mates."

"Oh. Okay. What's that – board games?"

"Unless they're headed to Blackpool."

"So, just the two of us, then."

"Indeed."

"Brilliant," she chirped with a smile. "But, Casa Tua. I've never heard of it."

"Yeah, it's in Aspen.

She laughed. "Aspen?"

"Mm-hm," he answered. "Problem?"

"No, but… isn't it, like, noon in Aspen right now?"

"We have a time machine," he reminded her flatly.

"Okay, then," she conceded, laughing again. "Lead on."

He set coordinates on the console, and threw the TARDIS into gear. Within a minute, the vessel stopped, and when they stepped outside, it appeared to be the same time of day, and they were parked just outside of the posh mountain village.

"So did we just jump forward seven hours?" she asked.

"Yep," he said. "It was five minutes after seven when we left, and it's five minutes after seven now."

"Cool," she shrugged, stepping onto the sidewalk.

He took her hand and led her the few blocks into town.

* * *

They enjoyed an elegant, but relaxed, dinner of Northern Italian cuisine and better wine than Martha was used to. The Doctor ordered Tiramisù for dessert, while Martha had cheesecake with blackberry reduction sauce.

After dinner, they took a walk, and decided to take the ski gondola up the side of the mountain, which ran all year long for tourists, hikers, bicyclists, et cetera. By then, it was just after dusk, and the town's lights illuminated the world below, like a cluster of a hundred thousand little stars. There was a pub on the mountaintop with a terrace, so they ordered one more drink, just so they could sit there, and they hardly spoke, as they watched the sun completely disappear.

Then, they rode back down, and on the way, the Doctor said, "You know, it's already about, oh… four-thirty in the morning in London."

"Think we're still awake there?" Martha asked, leaning her head back to kiss his neck… just once. Just enough.

"I hope so," he replied, and he took her hand, and kissed her fingertips.

They refrained from any scandalous snogging on the way down the mountain, but made their way back to the TARDIS, back to London (at nine-thirty pm) in Martha's back garden, and up the stairs to bed.

Two-and-a-half hours of wine, mountain air and relaxation practically flowed through their veins, and seemed to make them sink into one another in a slow, languid, moaning mass, guiding them through the first hour of lovemaking.

Cooling in the bedroom's dim light, she rolled over on her side, placed one hand on his shoulder, and said, "Hey, I almost forgot to ask, what did you find out today while you were skulking?"

"Not a whole lot, but I do have a theory, based on what I overheard from two blokes chatting at the urinals."

"That's sexy. Do tell."

He turned over as well, to face her.

"I think that whatever is buried, or locked away, beneath that engraved slab is in a different reality."

"Oh, so, like the slab is concealing a portal, or something?"

"Could be. Something like that," he said. "In addition, I think that the slab itself has been, until very, very recently, on a different plane of reality as well. Which is why we are perceiving it in Latin, and the TARDIS translation circuit is working on our brains, but not on _that_."

"So, what, it appears in _our_ reality suddenly a few weeks ago, in preparation for opening it?"

"That's what I'm thinking. In preparation for the _time of answering_ ," he said, exaggerating those last three words as though they were meant to boom throughout the block.

She laughed, then asked, "What the hell does that even mean, have you worked it out yet?"

"No. But I will."

This conversation led to talking about past experiences, when the Doctor had seen slightly similar things, and more theorising over what was actually happening here…

That gave way to reminiscing, which gave way to sentimentality, which gave way to a different type of _sentiment…_

So, the second hour of lovemaking was punctuated (interrupted) by a phone call, just after midnight.

"What the hell?" Then, upon seeing the display of who was ringing, Martha mumbled, "Damn it!"

"You're going to _answer it? Now?_ " he asked, exasperated, pulling back from her, in a bit of disbelief.

"We've been knocking the wall with the headboard."

"So?"

"Hi, Mrs. Finley," Martha said, practically trembling, speaking into the phone to her overly-sensitive neighbour.

The Doctor was in much the same incredibly tightly-coiled state, on his knees beside her on the bed, waiting rather impatiently. "Who's that?" he mouthed, irritated.

Martha mouthed "neighbour," and gestured at the wall. Aloud, she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was so late. Yes… of course, we'll try and keep it down."

The Doctor stifled a laugh.

Martha frowned at whatever Mrs. Finley had said next. "Oh, erm… it's racquetball practise," she responded.

This time, he couldn't hold it in, and let loose a guffaw.

Martha reached over to the space beside her head and threw his own pillow at him.

"Well, it's just, there's no time to practise during the day… I know, it's daft… all right, yes, sorry. Good night, Mrs. Finley," Martha said, ending the call, tossing the phone onto the floor.

"Racquetball practise?"

"Pssh," she scoffed. "What's she thinking, asking what we're doing? Like she doesn't bloody know?"

"She just wanted to see what you'd say, make you squirm a bit," the Doctor offered. "The truth would have shut her up more quickly, but I liked your response. It showed vision."

"Well… what do we do? Stop?"

"There's always the TARDIS."

"Good idea," she said, rolling sideways out of bed, and hurrying for her robe.

* * *

By eight a.m. they were back in Martha's kitchen, having coffee and toast. Martha had wanted to take advantage of _home_ before becoming a fully-fledged TARDIS resident again in a few days, and the Doctor had wanted to scour the newspaper for new info about the time capsule.

They checked about for Donna, but she hadn't made it back yet.

"Anything new?" Martha asked from the table by the window, as she checked her e-mail.

"Nope," the Doctor said, closing the paper. "Just an ad for the event… stuff we already know. I was hoping to find a mini-feature on the firm, or a profile puff piece or something, but I've looked over every page, and there's _nada._ "

"Okay," she said, sighing, sitting back in her chair. Her mind seemed to wander, as she watched him move toward her, pick up her mug, smile at her, then walk back over to the counter to refill both of their cups. She watched the way he moved, the earnestness of his face while he poured, the way his trainers hugged the floor while he walked about. She loved it all.

Today, he was wearing blue, which he only did about a third of the time. She preferred this to brown, as this had been the way she'd seen him when they'd had their first adventure together, when the hospital went to the moon. This morning it was the blue suit with white pinstripes, dark burgundy shirt, with a blue and burgundy tie, and red shoes. The ensemble was clearly a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it was part of the smouldering-hot "package" she'd mentioned to Donna on the previous day, on the terrace.

They'd retired to the TARDIS in the wake of Mrs. Finley's complaint last night, and upon waking today, for the first time, she'd got to see the inside of the Doctor's wardrobe. It had been fascinating to glimpse the dozen identical brown suits and the four blue ones – all well-tailored, and extremely intentional. There was also a myriad of blue, white, brown and red dress shirts hanging nearby, as well as the same colour palate of t-shirts and ties. Way over to the right, there hung a tuxedo, which Martha had only seen him wear once.

But it had been a _good_ once.

All of this brought something to mind. "Doctor, do you have a black suit to wear to a funeral?"

"Eh?" he asked, looking at her with a confused frown, and approaching again, with her second cup of coffee.

"The funeral is in two days. You said you would come."

"Oh, right," he sighed. "Gee, I never think about clothes."

"Ironic," she said under her breath.

"I suppose I can't wear a tux."

"No, sorry," she said. "If you want people to ask as few questions about you as possible, you'll need to wear something conventionally appropriate for a funeral. Blend in."

"Okay, fine, but I'm not wearing dress shoes. Not even for you."

She chuckled. "Well, one has to draw the line somewhere. We can go today and buy you a new suit. I don't have to work."

"You don't?" he asked, sitting down across from her.

"No," she said. "Today was Julia's day off."

"Oh, okay. I mean, I _could_ choose something on my own…"

At that, there was a knock at the door. Martha got up first to answer, and the Doctor followed.

When she opened it, there stood Donna, and another woman. She was about Donna's age, straight blonde hair, a warm, bright smile.

"Hi," said the woman sprightly. "You must be Martha and the Doctor."

"Hi, guys," said Donna. "This is my friend Mads. Mads, Martha, Doctor."

The woman reached out to Martha for a handshake. "Madeleine McBride, pleased to meet you. Just wanted to be sure Deanie got back safely."

"Deanie?" the Doctor asked.

"Nickname," Donna said, waving it away, stumbling into the house. "It's a thing. Sorry… forgot the key you gave me."

"That's all right," Martha said. She ushered Madeleine into the house, as the Doctor grabbed onto Donna, who was not at all steady on her feet.

Everyone noted the distinct scent of alcohol that wafted about Donna's person.

The four of them went back into the kitchen. The Doctor deposited Donna onto the barstool where he had been sitting a few minutes before, moved the newspaper out of the way, and walked to the cabinet immediately, for another mug. He poured her some coffee and deposited it right in front of her.

"Drink this," he said, not gently.

"Thanks, but I don't really do coffee," she told him. "You know that."

"Drink it anyway."

"I don't need it!" Donna shouted, insistently.

"Yes, you do!" he shouted back, matching her tone.

"Er, Madeleine," Martha interrupted. "Coffee? Tea?"

"Whatever's on," Madeleine replied, sitting down beside Donna. "Coffee's fine. With milk, if you have it."

Martha obliged, while the Doctor studied Donna rather too closely, and Madeleine tried not to look at either of them.

"So, Madeleine, how long have you and Donna known each other?" Martha wondered, trying to diffuse the tension in the room.

"Oh, maybe twenty-five years," Madeleine said. "We met at school in Chiswick. Some girls were teasing me because I had frizzy hair back then. Deanie told them off for me."

Martha smiled. "That sounds like her."

"Doesn't it just?" Madeleine remarked with gusto. "And thus, a friendship was born. We even introduced each other to our existing mates, such as they were. So, there used to be a bunch of us, went about together, did things, drummed up trouble… now it's just the two of us."

Donna stood up suddenly, almost knocking her stool over. "I need a shower. Please excuse me. Thanks for the lift home, Mads. Call you later."

With that, she disappeared upstairs, while the other three watched her go, rather nonplussed.

"Okay. That's odd," Martha observed, as soon as they heard the bathroom door slam.

"Yeah," the Doctor sighed. "Game night must have been a bust?" It was phrased in a way that Martha knew, it could have been rhetorical, or not.

"Game night?" Madeleine asked, sitting up straight.

"Yeah. She said it was game night with some mates," he shrugged.

"Erm, no," Madeleine responded, uncomfortably. "It was just the two of us… all night. She rang me up in a bit of a state, and asked if she could come round."

"When did she ring? I mean, what time?" asked the Doctor.

"I dunno. Maybe quarter to seven, seven o'clock."

He looked at Martha meaningfully. They both realised then that this was _after_ the Doctor had invited Donna out to dinner with the two of them, and _after_ she had told him that Madeleine had called _her_ about game night.

"She made it up?" the Doctor asked. "Why would she do that?"

"She was just… well, a bit despondent," Madeleine said, sipping her coffee. "She had a bit of an episode over Lance."

"Lance?" asked the Doctor. "Seriously? That guy was a wanker. Actually, _wanker_ doesn't even..."

"Doctor," Martha interrupted, stopping him with a touch of his hand.

"Well, to be honest, I don't really think it's about Lance," Madeleine explained. "It's more about the before and after. The fact that everyone before Lance had been such a tosser, and there hasn't been anyone since. I don't know how much you know about Deanie's past, but she hasn't had good luck with men. I don't know what's brought it on this time, but... she was more upset than I've seen her since our friend Nancy got married for the fourth time, to a millionaire. In Tahiti."

"I see," the Doctor said, quite subdued.

"She cried a lot last night. Drank at least a bottle of wine all on her own. Talked about turning forty next year, and urged me never to take my life for granted – my husband, my kids, and the like."

The Doctor whispered, "I guess we should've seen this coming."

"We did… sort of. Just not specifically this," Martha said.

"Well, look," Madeleine said, getting to her feet. "You should know that she thinks the world of you two. She spent a chunk of the night talking about how good you are, and how lucky she is to know you, and how lucky you are to have one another. I would never just dump her in the care of people I've never met before, not in the state she's in, if she hadn't insisted that she'd be in excellent hands."

"She is," Martha said. "We'll get her sorted out."

"Good. Tell me, how do you know each other?"

"Oh, erm," the Doctor began, nervously pulling at the hair on the back of his head. "I helped her sort out some of her issues after… Lance."

"Oh! Well, no wonder she calls you _the Doctor_ ," Madeleine remarked with a smile. "Truth be told, I didn't know she'd seen a therapist after all that, but I'm glad she did. Glad you became her friend, in addition."

"We are, too," the Doctor answered.

"Well… thank you for the coffee," Madeleine practically whispered now, in her most British manner. "I'd better be going, then. Please ask Deanie to ring me a bit later, let me know how she's faring, would you?"

"Absolutely," Martha promised.


	8. Chapter 8

**Donna's friend Madeleine has just left Martha's flat, and... well, poor Donna! However, my fondest desire with this chapter was not to make Donna sound adolescent or pathetic. I wanted her reasoning to be sound, and not petty, not too feeling-sorry-for-herself...**

 **Anyway, enjoy... if something like this is to be "enjoyed." ;-)**

* * *

EIGHT

Martha dumped four mugs of forgotten coffee down the drain, and set about washing the porcelain by hand. The Doctor stood, leaning against the counter nearby, staring at the floor.

When she turned off the water, and they could hear each other again, she asked, "Feeling guilty?"

"Of course," he answered quickly. "But feeling guilty's like my hobby, so…"

"We had a lovely, romantic, fulfilling night. And she drank wine and cried."

"Yep."

A long pause ensued, while they listened to the water upstairs turn off, the shower curtain open, and footsteps move about.

When their eyes met once more, she asked, rather quietly, "Will we _ever_ be able to have a night like that again, without the guilt?"

"I invited her, and she chose…"

"You know as well as I do that _that_ doesn't matter."

He sighed. "Yeah. I do."

The door to the bathroom opened at the top of the stairs, and Donna emerged in a fluffy bathrobe, and sauntered down the stairs, towelling her hair dry.

"Hi, you two," she said, with an embarrassed sort of laugh. She sounded as though she'd come alive, though she still seemed exhausted. At least she didn't seem unsteady or addled. "Sorry about all this. Had a rough night."

"No need to apologise," Martha said.

"You'd think I'd know by now, I can't drink like a twenty-five-year-old anymore. Can't do anything like a twenty-five-year-old anymore."

The Doctor scrutinised her, without saying anything. She could feel his eyes on her, and was glad of Martha's presence.

"How are you feeling now?" asked Martha.

"A bit more alert. Headachey."

"Have a seat," Martha said, heading for the fridge. She emerged with a container of yoghurt, and a bottle of water. "Here you go – cysteine and hydration."

"Cysteine?"

"An amino acid. May or may not clear a metabolic pathway to help alleviate your hangover symptoms, according to a clinical trial," Martha replied, really quickly.

"Good grief, you talk like _him_ now," Donna said, smiling, indicating the Doctor.

"Whatever. If nothing else, you should just get some protein in your body. And, I'll get you some ibuprofen."

"I usually have better luck with paracetamol," Donna advised.

"Nope," Martha snapped. "Can't mix paracetamol with alcohol – it'll destroy your liver."

Donna sat, and chuckled as Martha disappeared upstairs into her bedroom. "It's good to be friends with an A&E physician."

She tore off the foil top of the yoghurt, then realised she didn't have a spoon. Without making eye contact, she said to the Doctor, "I could do with a spoon. Could do _without_ the judgement."

He leaned to his left and extracted a spoon from a drawer and set it down beside her right hand. Then he said, "This is not judgement. This is worry."

"I could do without that, too," she said, flatly, spooning a bit of lemon-flavoured yoghurt into her mouth. She didn't fancy it; in fact, it made her gag slightly, in her post-drink state. But she reckoned she owed it to Martha (who also happened to know what the hell she was talking about) to eat it. After her third bite, she acclimated to it, then took a long pull of water.

"Donna, you said you were going to _game night_ with a bunch of mates. Your friend Madeleine tells a slightly different story."

"You checked me out? Who are you, my dad?"

"No, I'm your friend."

"Right. And I thought you weren't judging."

"No way. You've seen me do far worse when I've been despondent… I'm the last guy who's going to judge you for a weepy little bender."

"Good, then shut it, will you?"

"No, because I'm…"

"Concerned, I know," she sighed. "Everyone's _concerned_ about Donna. But I'm not going to talk about it… any of it. So let's just get on with it, shall we?"

He didn't say anything.

Martha reappeared in the kitchen with a miniature cup, and two pills inside. "Don't take them until you've eaten. And drink at least that whole bottle of water, yeah? Preferably within the hour."

"Okay," Donna said. "Thanks."

This was, in point of fact, not Donna's first hangover – not by a longshot. She knew perfectly well, without being told, that hydration was key, and had taken a billion paracetamol in the morning on an empty stomach, and nothing bad had happened to her… except, perhaps, she now knew, she may have needlessly damaged her liver.

It was occurring to her that she would never just say _okay, thanks_ , to any other friend who had said these things to her. Part of it was Martha's profession (this was _what she did,_ for God's sake), and part of it was Martha's role in her life. Donna was grateful to her, a little envious of her, and she was reluctant to upset her in any way. She wanted to seem the least like a pain-in-the-arse as possible…

…and she wanted to soften the blow for what she wanted to say later.

 _Actually, in that case, maybe it would be better if Martha saw me as a nuisance… more so, that is._

"Well, shall we talk about Milfred G. Widgehouse?" the Doctor said to both of them, to lighten the heavy load of silence.

"D'you mean Buford S. Greene?" Donna asked, with a chuckle.

"Yeah, that's what I said," the Doctor shrugged.

"How did the great skulking caper go?"

"Not terribly productively," he said. "I only narrowly missed being caught… and I can't even say _that_ with any kind of certainty."

"Didn't you say that he's got some sort of… technology?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Borrowed power. He could sense me. I don't think he saw me, and it's possible he wasn't even sure what it was that he was feeling. But my presence there was definitely felt, whether Greene understood it or not."

"But tell her what you _did_ find out," Martha urged.

He related to Donna what he had surmised, about the time capsule being in a different reality, and the stone panel being a kind of portal.

"Whoa, that's pretty bizarre," Donna commented. "Right up your alley."

"Well, let's hope so," he said. "I also found out that there's some sort of big meeting happening on Monday morning at nine. I think we should find out what goes on there. Though, obviously, I can't go back there."

"Okay, so we go in Sunday night and implant surveillance equipment," Martha shrugged.

"Can't do that," he said. "If I'm right, and Greene is using a particular sensor forged by the Time Lords, then he'll know immediately that there's surveillance technology in the room."

"So, we go undercover," Martha suggested. "They haven't seen me – I could use one of those old dictophone tapes to record the conversation…"

"Actually, I'm going to need Donna for this one," the Doctor interrupted.

Martha shifted her gaze to Donna, with a bit of surprise.

"The entire first floor is glass walls," the Doctor said. "Which makes things particularly difficult for skulking, even undercover. But what I noticed was that the ladies' toilet is right underneath the main conference room."

"And that's got _what_ to do with me?" Donna wondered.

"You're going to listen in, and take notes," he said. "You know shorthand, yeah?"

"Of course."

"Well, we're going to need details."

"Oh. Okay. Yeah, I can do that. But I thought you said we couldn't use surveillance equipment," Donna said.

"We can't," the Doctor confirmed. "But I've got an idea for what we _can_ use. I'll have it ready for you by the week-end."

"And the meeting is Monday morning at nine?" she asked, lowering her voice.

"Yes."

"And they open the time capsule on Wednesday, yeah?"

"According to the papers."

"And we stand by for damage control to negate whatever effect the artefacts therein will have upon our world… most especially the crowd that turns out to watch."

"If we can't stop it happening first, yeah." He squinted, feigning deep thought. "It is rather the sort of thing that we do, now I think of it. Wouldn't you agree?"

She ignored the question. "And then presumably, the TARDIS leaves from that back garden, and adventures in time and space continue?"

"That's the plan," he said. "Why?"

Donna sighed. She hadn't wanted to bring this up just yet, but since the "end-point" of this particular caper was being discussed, she reckoned it might be a good time. Especially as she sat there in a bathrobe, looking a bit pathetic, circles under her eyes, nursing a hangover.

"Because, Doctor, Martha… when the TARDIS does dematerialise from that back garden, I won't be in it," she said, gently.

"What?" Martha spat. "That's ridiculous, Donna. Of course you will be."

"No," Donna said softly. "I've decided. It's not my place anymore."

"Why?" the Doctor wondered aloud… as if he didn't know.

She made eye-contact with him, finally. "Because, Doctor, when you invited me to dinner last night, I wanted to go, but my first instinct was to say _no_. I said _no,_ and made up an excuse before even giving it a second thought because…"

The Doctor and Martha waited for her to gather her thoughts and finish what she was saying.

"…because when you said, 'It'll be fun, the three of us,' what popped into my head was an image of the two of you on one side of the table holding hands, and me on the other side of the table, watching. Drinking. Holding my own hand. The words _pity invite_ came into my mind in a split second, fast enough for me to reject the invitation and lie to you before I could stop myself."

"It was _not_ a pity invite," the Doctor said. "It was something I genuinely thought would be fun for three friends to do."

"I know," she sighed. "Or, at least, I know that you believe that. But later on, talking with Madeleine, I began to realise that I will never _not_ feel that way. I will never be able to just accept that you _want_ me at that table with you, when you ask me to join you."

"Never? Really?" Martha asked. "What happened to, _we'll get used to each other_ , like you said yesterday at lunch?"

"That came out of my mouth in the same breath as, _being single is nothing new_ ," Donna said. "Or whatever it was that I said. And it was true… none of this is new to me. Doesn't mean it feels all right. Besides, I was trying not to seem pathetic about it… but something in me snapped last night, after talking to you, Doctor."

"When I invited you to come to dinner..."

"... I hung up the phone and burst into tears."

"Donna you're just feeling a bit delicate right now… this is all new," Martha counselled. "This thing with the three of us, I mean. It's only been two days, with all of us under the same roof. And it's not a fraction the size of the TARDIS! Please, give it some time."

"I know myself, Martha," she said, smiling at her friend a bit indulgently. "I've been single for the vast majority of my adult life, and I've been made to feel like a loser because of it… not always, but quite often. More often than I should have allowed, frankly.

"The last twenty years," Donna continued. "I've watched one friend after another, meet someone nice, get engaged, get married, have children, buy homes, set up a life. Even find fulfilling careers. A few of my mates have done all of that, then chucked it all, and done it all a second time! Meanwhile, I have been a bridesmaid _seven_ times and have dated every tosser, cheat, and leech in London. I have thrown seven bridal showers for other people, and then ended up having to return all the gifts from the one thrown for me, and go home without the groom. So I'm almost hard-wired, at this point, to feel _delicate_ all the time. Human life is short – twenty years is a long time to seek, find, lose, and hear platitudes about it, over and over again."

A long silence ensued, during which the Doctor and Martha looked pleadingly at each other, each willing the other to say something that would fix it all – Donna's despondence, and their guilt.

Martha was the one to speak next. "Donna, I'm so sorry you feel this way," she said. "But… you helped us get together!"

"I know," Donna said, with a warm smile. "And I'm so glad I did! I would do it again in a heartbeat, because I wasn't lying yesterday when I said that I knew that you belong with him. I would never begrudge either of you any happiness… especially you, Spaceman, Crown Prince of Angst."

The Doctor smirked a little.

"But I don't belong in the middle of it," Donna finished. Then she scrunched up her face. "Literally _or_ metaphorically, actually. So, I will gladly use my Powers of Secretarial Excellence to uncover and report on what's happening with Mumford P. Gladhand…"

"Buford S. Greene," the Doctor corrected, with a knowing smile.

"Yeah, that's what I said. But after _his_ case is closed, I'm going back to Chiswick – back to my mum and my granddad, my herb garden, my crash diets, my online dating, my girls' nights..."

"Okay," the Doctor conceded.

"Okay?" Martha shrieked at him. "Are you kidding?"

"I'm not going to fight you, Donna," he said. "If you feel you need to go, then… we understand."

"Thank you, Doctor," Donna said, with a relieved sigh.

Martha, though, wondered if Donna were waiting for them to rush to talk her out of it!

"Well, perhaps I'll set about making that surveillance device for Monday, that can't be detected by Leland Q. Shoemaker's technology," the Doctor said. "I'll need the TARDIS."

"Yeah, and…" Donna said, standing up from her chair, and looking down at her garment. "It occurs to me that I'm basically just sitting here naked, eating yoghurt in someone else's kitchen."

"Go ahead and use my room to change, if you'd like," Martha said. "Sorry I don't have a spare room."

"It's all right," Donna said. "I'll probably just go back to my mother's house Friday night anyhow."

"Don…"

"Martha," the Doctor snapped. "With me, please?"

She was more than a little annoyed at his curtness, and his ordering her about. "Oi, who d'you think I am?" Then she softened, and sighed. "I thought we were going to go buy you a new suit."

"That can wait 'til later. Come on – I need your help with this thing."

Martha sighed and followed the Doctor out the back door.

As soon as they were outside, she asked, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you just going to let her walk away?"

"'Course not!" he chided. "What do I look like, a man who would let someone like Donna escape to wallow in her own misery, while you and I spend the next God-Knows-How-Long shagging and drinking Sangria?"

"Well…"

"I'll admit," he said, leaning against the outside of the back door, with his arms crossed. "I'm not in the habit of begging people to stay, once they've made up their mind to leave. If I were, _our_ relationship would have been very different long ago, and there would, arguably, be no Donna in my life right now, at all."

"Oh."

"However, I think this time, we need to make an exception."

"Thank God."

"Let's give her, say, two days. Forty-eight hours to stew in her own juices, and we'll take a hard stab at talking her out of it."

"Okay. Good. But we're going to need a plan of attack."

"I'm banking on her changing her own mind between now and then," he said. "Or, at least, having enough doubt arise that she'll be easy to sway."

"And if that doesn't happen? She's one of the few people _you_ can't charm."

"Well… then… let's go buy a suit, and talk about a plan of attack."

"Two great ideas, Doctor," she chirped, a bit sardonically. "Wish I'd thought of them."


	9. Chapter 9

**This chapter is rather short, and it's all about relationships. I hope it makes you laugh/smile. :-)**

 **So, remember, Martha's great uncle Floyd passed away earlier in the week?**

* * *

NINE

"Floyd Brownhill was an upstanding citizen," said a non-descript man, dressed in black, with a white collar, and an insincerely distressed expression on his face. "He was kind, generous, and people admired him."

"Well, that's true," Clive Jones whispered in Martha's ear. "Not that _he_ would bloody know that."

"Shh, Dad," she whispered. "Enough. Just leave it."

She had, half an hour earlier, witnessed a tense encounter between Clive, his mother, who was Floyd's sister, and his cousin Allan, Floyd's son. Clive, who been closer with his uncle Floyd than with his own father, wondered why on Earth a vicar who had _never met the deceased_ was giving the eulogy. His mother had insisted that this was what had been decided by Floyd's kids, and it was not his place to protest.

"The hell it isn't!" Clive shouted. "He always said I was like a son to him, and he was a right sight more present in my life than my own dad, that's for sure! I should at least have had a say in it!"

Allan had said, "No one is disputing your place in his life! But Dad wasn't religious anyway! It's not like we have a family priest who could regale us with stories, and make us all feel spiritually edified. It's just a dog and pony show, Clive – let it go."

"How could you say that? Look, I could say a few words," Clive offered. "I've still got some time to prepare…"

"It's settled, Clive," his mother had snapped. At that point, she noticed that Martha had walked into the sanctuary with a new man, and all of her attention was then focused on the tall man with the spiky hair and the incongruous Converse on his feet (which absolutely delighted her, for some reason).

"Well, listen to him!" Clive spat at Martha, during the soulless eulogy. "It's just platitudes. It's probably the same bullshit he says about every person who comes through here, expecting a proper funeral."

"Hush, you!" Martha's grandmother scolded from in front of them. "I'll take you over my knee. Don't think I won't!"

This caused everyone in the vicinity, save for Clive, to stifle a laugh, and pretend to turn their attention back to the vicar at the front of the room.

"Floyd was born right here in London on 13th August, 1924, to Edith and Vincent Brownhill. He served in the RAF during World War II, and then became a certified plumber in 1945, after the war, when the city was being rebuilt. He met Anna Christine Pelham in 1946 and they married in 1947. They had two sons, Oliver and Allan, and one daughter, Marie. They have six grandchildren: Louis, Jillian, Colin, Ted, Gabby and Michael. Anna preceded him into the House of Our Lord in 2001, after a battle with cancer."

"Oh yeah, this is _highly_ personal and _fully_ respects the man he was on the inside. Great decision, guys," Clive whispered to his cousins, seated in front.

Everyone ignored him.

The vicar went on to deliver a list of facts about Floyd's life, and a few subjective "platitudes" as Clive had called them, that might have applied to anyone in the world. All of it was done with a soft, sympathetic tone of voice, which, Martha supposed, was meant to substitute for actual substance. But she reckoned it didn't matter, because there was nothing that Uncle Floyd loved more than when the family was all together, and that's what was happening now… so, who cared what some random clergyman said?

When the service was over, Floyd's sister, children and grandchildren lined up beside the open casket, so that guests could file by, and pay their respects to the departed and his family.

"I can't go through that receiving line," Clive said.

"Dad, this isn't like you," Tish complained. "Can't you just let this thing go? Floyd's memory was honoured, we're all here, everyone's watching…"

"Listen, if you can't get hold of yourself, then maybe it _is_ best if you just meet us at Marie's for the wake," Francine said, firmly. "You can cool off in the car. I'll ride with Martha."

"Fine," Clive grumbled, and went against the crowd like a salmon, and disappeared through a door at the back of the sanctuary.

"Never seen your dad like that before," the Doctor said quietly to Martha and Tish. "Well, except for when he was possessed by a malevolent alien entity."

Francine turned and faced them all with venom in her eyes. "You lot need to put a bloody lid on that kind of talk! Really!"

Martha chuckled. "Sorry. We'll stop." With that, she elbowed the Doctor in the abdomen and told him, "Stick to your story, John."

That was when the vicar motioned for their row to move down the aisle and, "Greet the dearly departed, one last time."

Upon her turn, Martha held Floyd's stiff hand, and said, "My dad had to leave, but if he were here, he'd say that he loved you. Take care of yourself, Uncle Floyd, wherever it is that you've gone now."

The Doctor said nothing, but inched along with Martha into the receiving line. She introduced him to everyone, he offered his condolences. She gave each person a cordial kiss on the cheek, until she reached the end of the line.

"Colin!" she exclaimed, a bit inappropriately loudly. And she jumped up and hugged the man heartily. "Wow, how long's it been?"

"I dunno," he said, setting her back on her feet. "Maybe since Maisie's birthday at the lake?"

"That long? God, I'm sorry I haven't phoned!"

"It's all right… I could have done, too."

"Oh, sorry! Colin, this is, erm, John." She swallowed then, and realised she felt more guilty about lying to Colin than anyone else, which is why she had tripped over the introduction. She shook it off almost instantly, then, to the Doctor, she said, "This is my cousin Colin – one of my absolute most favorite people! He was my hero when we were kids – the super-cool older cousin. He showed me how to dissect things!"

"But not in a proto-serial-killer way," Colin assured the Doctor. "I also showed her how to build a popsicle-stick bridge, which is totally non-creepy."

The two men shook hands, and exchanged greetings.

"Are you going to Aunt Marie's now, for the wake?" Colin asked.

"We'd planned on it, yeah," Martha told him.

"Okay," Colin said. "You know, I really think you and I should catch up, but there won't be a chance at the wake. I'll have to stand in another flippin' receiving line 'cause Marie has invited a bunch of people who aren't here at the funeral."

"I see. Sounds great," Martha muttered.

"I mean, I want to be there for my granddad, but I'm not sure how standing single-file with my brother and my cousins, shaking hands with people, is helping to usher him into the next life, you know?"

"Well, we could go get a drink afterwards. If you want."

"Sounds good," said Colin. "Let's plan on it – the three of us. Do you know Fiona the Forger, over in Marie's neighbourhood?"

"We can find it," Martha said.

"The wake runs until three. Let's meet there at four. Maybe dinner later – play it by ear?"

"Great," Martha chirped.

Colin reached out for the Doctor's hand again. "Nice to meet you, John. Looking forward to knowing more about you – see you in a bit, then."

* * *

A little after three p.m., Martha and the Doctor arrived at her flat to change clothes, and found Donna, pacing in the foyer, shouting into her mobile phone.

"Who d'you think you are, anyway, a damn goddess? He's a grown man, for God's sake!"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other, and shrugged. Donna loosely acknowledged them, but went on arguing.

"It's the same blooming thing you do to me, d'you know that? You nag, and you nag, and you nag until I cannot stand one more minute of the sound of your voice, and give in. And you think you've won, but d'you know what? No-one actually gives in, mum, it's just that we lie to you to shut you up!" A pause. "Oh, yes, we do. Me and granddad both. You think he really eats that carob and bran rubbish you feed him? No! He throws it in his garden as compost and eats meat pies from the corner market instead, while he's up on the hill!"

The other two, rather than standing about eavesdropping, moved around her and tiptoed upstairs. The Doctor changed into a brown suit with a light blue dress shirt, and navy-blue tee shirt, with the rare no-tie choice. Martha pulled on jeans and a pink tee-shirt, and a pair of sandals.

They didn't say much as they changed, and said absolutely nothing as they made their way down the stairs back toward Donna. They arrived just in time to hear her scream something vulgar at her mother, cut off the call, and throw the phone into the next room.

"Yikes, Donna," Martha winced. "Sorry about all that."

"No, no, I'm the one who's sorry," Donna whispered. "Erm, Martha, I may need to stay here a few more days. I can't go home after that."

"No problem."

"She's absolutely stifling my grandfather – totally ruining his twilight years, I say! And she's his legal guardian, which he needs on account of his hip and his inner-ear injury, so I can't even have him come stay with me, once I get my own place, or she says she'll take me to court. It's like he's a child!"

"You stay as long as you need to, or want to," Martha said. "Your grandfather too, if you can manage it."

"I wish," Donna sighed, sitting despondently on the back of the sofa.

"We're going out for a drink," Martha told her. "Why don't you come? You look like you could use one."

"No thanks," Donna answered, softly, with a weary look in her eye. "You two go."

"Please come," the Doctor said. "We're meeting Martha's cousin, and they haven't seen each other in years. They need to catch up, and I'm going to need someone to talk to. Or at least someone to share incredulous glances with."

Donna put her head back, and massaged her neck with her right hand. She studied the ceiling, thinking about it, then said, "Okay, fine. I'm just pissed-off enough… I could use a drink. What the hell? Let me just freshen up, and I'll be ready."

* * *

Just before four, they walked into Fiona the Forger's pub, found a table, and the Doctor went to the bar for four lagers, in anticipation of Colin's arrival.

The three of them made small talk, and briefly discussed the time capsule issue before Martha looked up, and waved at someone who seemed to have just walked through the door.

Donna's eyes were drawn to a man in a black t-shirt and jeans, waving back, with a huge smile.

"Jesus, Martha," she whined, though she hadn't meant to say anything at all.

"What?" Martha asked.

"Well… why didn't you tell me your cousin is Wesley Snipes?"

"Oh, well, he's… wait, what?"

"Yowza…" Donna mused, as the man came closer.

"Really?" Martha asked.

"Erm, yeah!" answered Donna, in a high pitch, though without moving her lips.

"Hi, you lot," Colin said, approaching. He gave Martha a kiss on the cheek, then pulled out the table's only empty chair, and sitting down beside Donna.

"Donna, this is my second cousin (or something like that), Colin Brownhill. Colin, this is our dear friend Donna Noble," Martha said, gesturing from one to the other.

"Well," Colin said, protracting the syllable and smiling widely. "Very nice to meet you, Donna Noble."

"Likewise, I'm sure," Donna responded, batting her eyelashes a bit - but not too much.

Martha and the Doctor exchanged a look. To Martha, at least, it had appeared that Donna was fairly well-skilled in the art of flirting.

"Tell me, how do you know my cousin?" Colin wondered.

"Well, actually I knew the Doctor first," Donna responded.

"She means John," Martha interjected.

"Erm, my fiancé – well, let me rephrase that:my _ex-fiancé_ – was having some issues, and the Doctor helped him out," Donna explained, good-naturedly.

"In my hospital administrator capacity," said the Doctor, remembering his and Martha's cover story, and how it had been disseminated at the wake.

Colin couldn't have cared less what the Doctor had to say, just now. He continued to smile, rested his elbow on the table, his cheek on his fist, and asked, "I see. And what do you do, Donna Noble?"

"Do? Oh, you mean, for a living?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, this and that," Donna answered, shrugging. "Mostly secretarial. Had trouble finding my niche."

"I bet you're a brilliant secretary."

"Well… yes," Donna admitted. "I am, rather. Ninety words per minute, trained in four spreadsheet programmes, and I can do a mean RP for answering phones."

Colin laughed. "There's call for that, is there? Pardon the pun."

"You'd be surprised," Donna answered, in an exaggerated RP, which made everyone smile. Changing her voice back to normal, she asked, "How about you, Colin Brownhill?"

"I'm an architect," he said. "I work for Westerhagen-Luft."

"Oh, I know that firm!" Donna exclaimed. "I took dictation one afternoon for one of the junior partners, in a meeting with some bigwigs from Stuttgart, when his secretary had flu!"

"That would be, who? Mr. Lustig?"

"Big bloke? German accent? Hardly any neck? Kind of smells like black licorice?"

"Yep, that would be the Ouzo," Colin said, smiling, shaking his head. "Man drinks the stuff like it's water. I find it disgusting, personally, but to each his own, I suppose."

"Speaking of drinking," Donna said, and she moved an untouched tumbler of lager in front of Colin. "Bottom's up. Didn't know what your poison was, so, we let the Doctor choose."

"This is great, thanks," Colin said to the Time Lord, taking a hearty sip. "I'm definitely a beer-lover."

And so it went for the next hour or so – Colin and Donna completely taken with one another, and the Doctor and Martha listening in wonder, occasionally exchanging a "wow" glance.

At some point, Colin said, "Oh, my God, Martha, I'm so sorry. We came out for a drink tonight so we could catch up, and here I am taking up your lovely friend's time with my incessant questions…"

"It's okay," Martha said, waving away the comment. "No one minds."

"Least of all me," Donna lilted.

"We said we might get a bite to eat, play it by ear," Colin suggested. "What do you lot say? My treat."

"I promise I won't dominate the conversation," Donna added, winking.

* * *

 **Don't worry, I didn't just introduce a Deux Ex Machina for Donna's emotional issues!**

 **Also... a review would make my day! Thank you for reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

**I think you'll like this chapter! The first half has some fluffy family/relationship stuff, which was super-enjoyable to write, and it's stuff that I think we can all relate to.**

 **But I hope the end of the chapter excites you, and makes you shout when you read it!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

TEN

The Doctor, Martha, Donna, and Colin had dinner at a "gourmet" burger restaurant, each of them ordering a combination of burger toppings they had genuinely never had on one plate before. "And for me, that's saying a lot," the Doctor had commented.

"So, your dad…" Colin said, settling into his seat after the waitress had brought their plates and walked away. "He's got some strong opinions!"

"Sorry about that," said Martha. "He just loved your granddad so much."

"Well, don't get me wrong, I mean, we all appreciate the sentiment," Colin qualified. "And my granddad was a great man, who deserved a good send-off. But that's why we had the wake."

"Right," Martha agreed. "Family together, a few laughs…"

"Enough Shepherd's Pie for an army," Colin added, rolling his eyes.

"Although I noticed there was chocolate cake," Martha said.

"Yeah, thank heaven for that, right?"

"What's significant about chocolate cake?" asked the Doctor.

"Ugh," Colin groaned. "My granddad loved this thing called Lady Baltimore cake."

The Doctor sucked in air through his teeth and winced. "Ooh, I've had Lady Baltimore cake. Nasty business, that."

"You've had it?" Colin asked, surprised.

"Well… I've been around."

"My condolences, mate."

"What is it?" asked Donna.

"It's three or more thin layers of white cake with white icing round the outside," Colin explained. "Except there are chopped pecans in the frosting, gritty orange zest in the cake, which is bad enough. But the killer is this: between the layers of cake, there's this pasty, sticky mash of molasses, brandy, raisins and dried figs. And sometimes dates, if you're feelin' frisky."

"Oh!" Donna exclaimed. "That's… unique."

"It's appalling!" Colin corrected.

"I mean, I could think of worse things…"

Colin continued, "All of us hated it, but at every family event, granddad insisted upon inflicting this monstrosity on everyone, and Aunt Marie would always make it. Unless his brother Philip could overrule him… but when Philip died, we were all left to the wolves."

"And he'd get his feelings hurt if people didn't eat it!" Martha laughed.

"So… I mean, we wanted to honour his memory and all, but for God's sake, we could do that without making the whole family gag. The Baltimore needed to be laid to rest," Colin declared. "So, for the wake, Martha's grandmother baked a totally civilised chocolate – actually she baked three of them – and everyone's dignity was restored."

"You two are lucky," Donna commented. "No-one in my family can cook at all. The Christmas turkey is always dry, the potatoes are bland, my mum's pies are always underdone somehow…"

"Tell me about your mum," Colin encouraged, smiling delightedly at having been given this opening.

In response, Donna, Martha and the Doctor all groaned. Then Donna launched into a full-scale description of her mother's abrasive personality. Colin found it all charming.

"Aw, it sounds like she's just trying to look out for everyone, especially you," he said.

"Oi," Donna snapped at him. "Don't do that! I might be a bit on the emotional side, but I know what I'm talking about!"

He held up both hands, disarmed. "I'm sorry," he said, still smiling. "I will reserve all further judgement, until I have gathered more information."

Colin then went on to describe his own parents, and his relationship with them, which seemed to everyone to be decidedly less complicated than that of Donna with her mum. They talked a bit about school days, shared stories of how they got their nicknames, and discussed their favourite music.

In all of this, Colin and Martha did get a chance to catch up a bit, as was the primary objective. He did ask quite a few questions about life as a doctor. She recounted the last few years for him, editing out the bits about travelling in the TARDIS, walking across the planet to save the world from the Master, and whatnot. She discussed her final rotations at Royal Hope and why she chose to apply for her fellowship in their A&E. The Doctor spoke as little as possible about himself, or about her, though he did comment on things like the food and service at the restaurant, and he chimed in about his favourite 1960's musician, Janis Joplin.

Colin told the story (largely for Donna's benefit) of his most recent girlfriend flitting off to St. Tropez for a dirty week-end with a co-worker, while telling him the whole time that she was in business meetings.

"How did you find out?" Donna wondered.

"My laptop crashed about a week after she'd come home, so I had to use hers."

"Oh, don't tell me… her e-mails."

"Bingo," said Colin. "A fairly graphic one was on the screen when I took it out of sleep mode – I didn't even have to snoop. I'm not the snooping sort, and she knew that. But it was like she _wanted_ me to find it, you know?"

"Maybe. Either way, good riddance, eh?"

"Yeah," Colin agreed with a small chuckle." She was planning to leave me anyway, at least according to the e-mail chain… I just beat her to the punch, as it were. Felt good."

"Good for you. And maybe… good for me?" she added quietly, though loud enough for him to hear.

This made Martha smile.

At the end of dinner, the four of them stood outside the restaurant.

"So, Donna," Colin said. "May I see you home?"

"Actually, I'm staying with Martha at the moment," Donna said, wishing, not for the first time, that she had her own flat. To her friends, she said, "But you two can run along. I remember the address."

"Okay," Martha said, kissing her cousin on the cheek, and giving Donna a hug. "Have you got your key?"

"Yes," Donna answered with a smile.

"Then we'll see you… when we see you," Martha said.

The Doctor and Colin shared a handshake, and a, "Good night." Then the Doctor took Martha's hand and they walked away.

* * *

Once out of earshot, Martha said, "Well, that was… unexpected."

"It was, wasn't it?" he said. "I mean, it's brilliant."

"She's probably thinking we set it up."

"I hope not," he said. "That might just piss her off. Well, given the state of mind she's been in, and how she doesn't want anyone to pity her."

"I swear, it never occurred to me that they'd even _notice_ each other!"

"I know," he chuckled. "You don't have to convince me. Although, considering how she's been so impressed with your family thus far, and vice-versa…"

"That's true," Martha admitted. She was quiet for a moment, then asked, "Do you think Colin looks like Wesley Snipes?"

"I suppose… a bit. Actually, I was thinking earlier, he looks not unlike your dad. Why?"

"That's what Donna said when he first walked in, and she started ogling him. 'Martha, why didn't you tell me your cousin was Wesley Snipes?'"

Again, he gave a chuckle. "What can I tell you? People see what they want to see. Besides it's a good-looking family. And clever, as it happens."

"I guess," she said, absently, contemplating the idea of Donna perhaps becoming part of her family. It wasn't an unpleasant prospect, just a bizarre one. It was like her two worlds were colliding.

Then he asked, "So, what do you suppose they're going off to do now?"

"I dunno," Martha shrugged. "To be honest, I'd rather not think about it."

"Why? Wait…" The Doctor stopped in his tracks and exclaimed, eyes wide, "You don't think they'd… they just met!"

"I have no idea," Martha told him, pulling his hand, coaxing him to walk further. "I have no idea whether either one of them would do that sort of thing on the first date, if that's what we're calling it. I wouldn't, but some people would, and that's perfectly normal. What difference does it make?"

"Well," he said, uneasy. "It's just… Donna's a bit fragile just now…"

"Oh, you're feeling protective," Martha realised. "I see."

"I suppose I am," he groaned, only realising it now, himself. "Nothing against your cousin, it's just…"

"I get it," she interrupted. "And, again, I have no idea if Donna would attempt to drown her sorrows in a fling… do you?"

"Of course not," he said. "I've only known her to be romantically involved with one person, and she was marrying him, not _flinging_ with him."

"Well, Doctor, I know you don't know Colin that well, but I say, they are both people we can trust with one another's hearts. If nothing else, one thing is for certain."

"And that is?"

"It's none of our business."

"You're right," the Doctor said. "Though, I suspect you'll hear a bit about it tomorrow."

"I suspect you're right."

They walked in silence for a few moments, then the Doctor mused, "Hm. What attractive young singles get up to on a Friday night. The mind boggles."

"Feeling like an old man?" she asked, with a teasing bump against his arm.

"Donna's effect on me is weird," he said. "Right now, I feel like her big brother. Sometimes I feel like her insolent nephew. Sometimes I'm just her friend. It's kind of all over the board."

"I see. Do I make you feel _all over the board_?" she asked, flirtatiously.

"I never feel like your brother nor your nephew, if that's what you're asking," he answered, rather _sotto voce_. "But there is, let's say, a _range_ of emotions when I'm with you, Dr. Jones."

"Well-said," she whispered. "So, how emotional would you like to get tonight, given that we have a guilt-free Friday night on our hands, just waiting to be shaped and shaken?"

"Ah, well, I have big plans."

"Do tell."

"I think we should spend an incredibly passionate hour-or-so in the TARDIS console room, where we will use the sonic screwdriver to rig up some highly erotic souped-up reverb, for a stethoscope that Donna can use as a surveillance device for Monday's meeting," he said, his voice low and romantic.

"That sounds heavenly," she sighed, jokingly.

"And then, I think we should go back to your flat, and upstairs, to see if we can annoy the hell out of your neighbour."

* * *

As it turned out, apart from lending him an extra stethoscope from her med school days, Martha's help was not needed while the Time Lord doctored the device for Donna to use, three days hence.

So, Martha retired to her flat, to fill the bedroom with candles. Upon further discussion, they'd reckoned that it probably wouldn't be sporting to actually _try_ to irritate Mrs. Finley, and neither of them fancied receiving another phone-call, mid-shag. So, they promised each other they would keep things quiet tonight, no matter how incendiary they got.

After the promised hour, he turned up in her bedroom, and held up the stethoscope like a trophy. "Ta-dah. We'll try it out with Donna tomorrow."

"What did you do to it? Will I ever be able to use it again, for, like, normal stuff?"

"I just enhanced its resonance, and its scope. It's all very analog. Wilfred P. Tupperware's stolen technology shouldn't be able to sense it at all. And yeah, I can dial it back down again, so you can have a useable backup, if you ever return to your job full-time."

 _Wow,_ she thought. Now _that_ was truly a discussion for another night.

"Okay," she said. "How does it work? Does she have to stand on the toilet and press the auscultator to the ceiling?"

"Well, now, that would be highly impractical."

"Yeah, it would."

"Especially since she needs her hands free to take notes."

"Right."

"No, it should work through pipes, and heating and air conditioning ducts," he said. "She'll need to arrive early, to find out where to put it, so as to get the maximum sound efficiency. I don't know what kind of heating/cooling or plumbing they have there… I didn't notice if there was a sink or any other water-related device in the conference room, but I'd wager there's an air vent of some sort."

"Would it help if we got hold of the building's blue prints, ahead of time?"

"Good idea," he said.

"Maybe we can check online."

"Even better. In any case…" he said, putting in the earpieces, and pressing the auscultator to the wall, against which Martha's bed was situated.

"What do you hear?"

"Mrs. Finley is brushing her teeth," he said. "I've just heard swishing and spitting. Now she's humming. Listen."

Martha took the earpieces, and understood what he was talking about. She could now hear water running, and Mrs. Finley singing a song… sounded familiar.

"But…" said the Doctor.

Then he moved into the bathroom, and pressed the piece against the wall behind the sink. He listened, smiled, then motioned for her to come try it. When she did, she clearly heard water – not just rushing, but several distinct streams of water, seeming to flow in different directions. She also heard Mrs. Finley singing _words._

"… _and so I've wracked my brain, hoping to explain all the things that you do to me! Bei mir bist du schön, please let me explain, bei mir bist du schön means you're grand!"_

"Ah. Our Mrs. Finley is an Andrews Sisters fan," Martha chirped. "Who knew?"

"Interestingly enough, a song from 1938," the Doctor noticed. "Or was it 1937?"

Martha continued to listen to Mrs. Finley singing, and noticed that the words became a bit distorted, as though the woman had begun to try to sing without using her lips. Then, Martha heard snapping sounds at intervals.

"Oh my God! She's flossing! And trying to sing!"

He smiled. "She's actually got a pretty good singing voice."

"Yeah," Martha chuckled, pulling the auscultator away from the wall. "I wonder if we should phone her and ask her to stop."

"That would teach her," the Doctor said, in mock-seriousness.

"So, am I able to hear her with so much more clarity because she's standing next to the sink, and we're using the pipes behind my sink… and they're linked up?"

"Yep," he said. "Brilliant, innit?"

"As always," she conceded.

* * *

What followed was an hour or two of lovemaking, unencumbered by guilt, during which they played it as a bit of a game, not letting themselves make noise. Knowing that they would soon be floating free in the TARDIS, and able to do whatever the liked behind closed doors, they relished this idea.

What they did not know was that while they toiled, struggling delightedly to stay silent with one another between the sheets, there were agents of a faraway race in Martha's back garden, inspecting the blue box parked against the house.

They did not communicate verbally just now; they felt it was too dangerous. Rather, they used text-sending devices to converse, while skulking under the cover of Earth night.

" _What's the problem?"_ asked one. _"It's been an hour."_

" _I still can't get in,"_ replied the other.

" _What do you mean, you still can't get in?"_

" _What do you mean, what do I mean? I can't get in. Our Laserpic isn't penetrating the lock."_

The first agent then took the Laserpic and tried it for himself, realising that the TARDIS was not going to be easily accessible to them.

" _Our Laserpic isn't penetrating the lock,"_ said the first agent.

" _Gee, really? You don't say."_

" _But we were told the Laserpic could get through anything! We tried the Heblosaw, the Shulohammer and the Asietlift. Failing all of that, the Laserpic was supposed to work!"_

" _He's a Time Lord,"_ argued he second agent. _"And this is a Time Lord's vessel. We're not exactly talking about technological rubes, or had you forgotten?"_

" _No, I had not forgotten!"_

" _I don't know why you're so surprised that this is proving harder than we thought."_

" _How do we get to him, if we can't get into the TARDIS?"_

There was a pause, then the second agent offered, _"Wasn't it mentioned in the slideshow that the Doctor always travels with a companion?"_

" _Yeah, so?"_

" _The TARDIS is parked in someone's back garden."_

" _So?"_

" _So? Whose back garden is it?"_

" _How the hell should I know?"_

" _Wow, you are a serious, serious idiot, do you know that?"_

With that, the second agent began stepping toward the back door of Martha's flat. He used the Laserpic to open the door soundlessly, and the two of them snuck into the house. They tiptoed through Martha's mudroom and kitchen, then through the foyer up the stairs…

* * *

Still silent, still sensitive, still breathing heavily, the two of them lay enveloped the warm candlelight, enhanced by their own afterglow. She was on her side, and he was pressed up behind her, smouldering, kissing her neck, her jaw, whispering to her, letting his hand rest on her perfectly-shaped hip.

She was just drifting off to sleep when the bedroom door opened, and two beings stepped inside, both dressed in some sort of environmental protection suit.

They both sat up with a start. She instinctively pulled the sheet up to her neck and cursed at the intruders.

" _Oh, right,"_ she heard one of them say, the voice sounding electronic, as coming through a speaker. _"Companion. I see. Euphemistic."_

The Doctor had rolled out of bed, and fumbled on the floor for his pants.

" _Which one is the Doctor?"_ asked a second voice.

"I am!" the Doctor answered, standing upright, wearing only a pair of blue and white striped boxers.

" _Right, you're coming with us."_

"No!" Martha shouted. "Who the hell are you?"

" _Not you,_ " one of them said to her. _"That one."_

She too now got up out of bed, pulling the sheet along with her. "Over my dead body! Who are you? Where are you taking him?"

By now, one of the abductors was moving round the bed, grabbing a supremely annoyed Doctor by the arms. He frowned hard, but he didn't struggle when they applied invisible handcuffs behind his back.

"Can I at least put on my clothes?" the Doctor asked.

" _Quiet."_

"Doctor, what's happening?" Martha asked him, not getting any answers from the intruders.

"They're from the Galactic Council," he answered, as one of the agents manhandled him toward the door. "I'm being arrested."

"Arrested? For what?" she shouted. "You haven't done anything!"

"Just stay calm, don't get in their way," he told her.

"Like hell!" she shouted, attempting to scratch at the agent now leaving her bedroom behind the Doctor.

" _You should listen to him, dear,"_ said the agent, who promptly touched Martha's neck with a device that rendered her immediately unconscious on the bedroom floor.

* * *

 **Whaaaaaa?**

 **Maybe you have other words ;-). Leave me a review, let me know what they are... and thanks so much for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Relationships are difficult, even when you've met someone you really, really like! Baggage weighs everything down.**

* * *

ELEVEN

Colin Brownhill was charming, gorgeous, clever, well-off, and clearly seemed delighted by Donna. Martha had confirmed his story about being cheated-on by his most recent ex-girlfriend (she'd heard it from her dad, a few months back), so to her, it seemed unlikely that he would be the sort to inflict that sort of pain on anyone else. He had made no vulgar jokes, did not talk about football, and did not utter a single sexually suggestive comment, just to test the waters. And, as it turned out, he was better-apprised of celebrity gossip than any straight guy she had ever known.

Not that he was perfect. He did absently pour raw sugar packets onto his saucer so that he could suck it off his index finger as they chatted. He also used the word, _supposably_ several times. Both of these things struck her as slightly off-putting, but they were nothing she couldn't basically ignore.

He'd taken her to The Red-Eye, a café that catered to the _après pub_ crowd, opening at 10 pm and closing at 8 am. He'd found out about it, he'd said, from his younger brother Ted, who was a "much harder partier" than was Colin. The place served tea, coffee, espresso drinks, and greasy diner food. It occurred to Donna that she should remember this spot, for her next hangover.

She and Colin had been, by far, the oldest people in the café, but it had been genuinely fun anyhow. Being with him had made her feel _not_ middle-aged, _not_ painfully single, _not_ ultra-conspicuous as a person who clearly did not belong there. It had been easy to slide into conversation with him, and feel rather comfortable. For one thing, he was a member of a family that she already highly respected, so this was a tally in his favour…

Then, he confessed his rather entertaining hatred of "warm fruit" (in pies, muffins, tarts, and the like), the scent of cedar (well, really, he just though it was overrated – I mean, really, do you want a _candle_ that smells like _wet_ _wood_ in your house?), and the voice of Mariella Frostrup (it sounds contrived). All of this made Donna laugh, and put more tallies in his favour. Not because she agreed with him, but because of his passion, irreverence and humour.

And actually, most of what she had to say made him smile, as well. Given all this, it had been so, so tempting to jump at the chance to see him again when he'd asked to make another date with her. But considering her state of mind of late, she decided to try and be level-headed about it.

So, at the end of the evening (which was really just before three in the morning), they had exchanged phone numbers, and agreed to "talk soon." She was fairly certain that Colin thought he was being blown off at that point, but she resisted the urge to give in and change her mind, and agree to his suggestion of French food and an art-house film on Saturday night.

It was also tempting to ring up Mads and talk things through, but she knew her friend would not appreciate a call at this hour. She knew Mads would talk to her if she needed it, but she reckoned it could wait at least until the sun came up. Not to mention, her phone had died just after they'd arrived at the café – Colin had been obliged to write down his number on a napkin.

She took a taxi back to Martha's flat, and she thought it was fifty-fifty that either the Doctor, or Martha, or both, would be waiting up for her. And if so, she resolved to be honest with them. Even though they might take it personally, or, at the very least, it might make them feel even more guilty than they likely already did.

And the truth was: she was all but smitten with Colin, and vice versa. But she had spent all of Wednesday night in the throes of a powerful, desperate depression, which had manifested in overconsumption of alcohol and embarrassment the following morning. It had also manifested in the decision not to travel with the Doctor any longer, if it meant living in close quarters with him and Martha as a couple. She had actually declared that living with her mother was preferable to being an interference in the lives of people in love. She wasn't sure that she meant that bit any longer, but she wasn't about to go back on her word now.

All of these were symptoms of a deep despondency, and she'd been in this state before. Quite a few times.

Case in point, she had quietly cut ties with at least two close friends after serving as a bridesmaid in their wedding, because she couldn't stand to witness their syrupy-sweet lives coming to fruition. She had feigned illness in order to avoid attending more than one baby christening. She had purchased tickets to Portugal, rather than turn up for a flat-warming party for a recently-married co-worker. She knew it was selfish and small of her, that her friends' happiness was making her miserable; nevertheless, she'd learned to cut her losses.

In the latter case, she had met a Portuguese businessman on the beach, who had wined and dined her, easily charmed her into bed after knowing her for all of eight hours. He had never called her afterwards, and when she tried phoning him, she learned that he'd given her a false number. She was left feeling used, ashamed, ridiculous and gullible.

In another of those cases, standing in line at Starbucks, dodging a phone call from a newlywed friend with a loud "ugh," the tall, rugged-looking man standing in front of her had complimented her outfit, asked cheekily why she'd blown off the call, and demonstrated a decided attraction to her. Henry, he was called.

Henry, she wound up dating for six months, while he made her pay for all of their dinners out, borrowed rent money from her three months in a row (and never paid it back). The relationship ended when he booked a "surprise" spa day for the two of them on her credit card, then shagged the masseuse the following weekend.

The carnage didn't stop there.

And so, she was a little leery of jumping into a relationship with the first man who showed interest in her, just after what the Doctor called "a weepy bender." Yes, Colin seemed amazing… but so had the others. If she had taken a bit of time to get to know them, she likely would have realised that Paulo the Portuguese man was a cad, and Henry was a , and worse. But she'd allowed herself to become self-effacing and desperate, and had made horrible mistakes that had cost her months of more self-loathing, and wondering _what's wrong with me?_

She felt sure that Martha would understand this, even though Colin was her cousin. Martha was an eminently rational and kind person, and would not feel affronted that Donna would question Colin's intentions.

She stepped out of the taxi onto the kerb in front of Martha's flat, and noticed straight away that though it was three a.m., the lights were on. Not just the one in the bedroom upstairs, but the parlour, foyer and kitchen lights on the ground floor as well!

"What the…?" she whispered, drifting up the front steps.

But before she could reach the top, or even form a complete thought, the door flew open, and Martha appeared in the frame, looking dishevelled in a pair of shorts and the Doctor's wrinkled dress shirt, phone in-hand.

"Donna!" Martha cried out, upon seeing her. She met her halfway down the stairs, and threw herself at Donna, hugging her hard. "Thank heaven!"

"What? What's wrong?"

Martha grabbed Donna's arm and began dragging her up the stairs the rest of the way. "I've been calling and calling…"

"My phone died hours ago," Donna said. "Why are you up at this hour? Why are you so frantic?"

Martha waited until they were well and truly through the front door, and shut inside of her flat before reporting, "The Doctor's been arrested!"

"Arrested?" Donna choked out. "Are you bloody kidding me?"

"No! Why would I do that?"

"What did he do? I mean, what were the charges?"

"I don't know, they didn't say," Martha said. "We were upstairs, and these _beings_ in, like, HazMat suits came barging in, handcuffed him and escorted him out. He said they were from the Galactic Council. When I tried to stop them, they tazered me or something."

"Beings? So they weren't human?"

"No, Donna, it wasn't just a pair of sprightly London bobbies who took him," Martha whined. "They came into the house totally silently. They were… _humanoid,_ but I reckon there was a reason they were wearing those protective suits. Like, maybe, they can't breathe here!"

"Okay, okay. And they tazered you?"

"Yeah," Martha answered, now pacing in her foyer. "They touched this _thing_ to my neck, I felt a big vibrating jolt, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor where they'd left me, with the Doctor nowhere to be seen."

"When was this?"

"I woke up about an hour ago," she said. "I have no idea how long I was out."

"Have you tried calling the Doctor's mobile?"

"He didn't have it on him, Donna."

"How can you be sure? He can be surprisingly…"

"He barely had time to put on a pair of underpants, before they hauled him out, all right?"

"Oh. I see. Well, have you tried calling anyone other than me?"

"I tried Jack," Martha said, absently, still pacing. "He didn't answer. I'll try again during business hours."

"Who's Jack?"

"A friend of the Doctor's," Martha said. "He fights aliens… he's got a base in Cardiff. He's almost as weird as the Doctor, almost as old, almost as clever. Almost. Twice as reckless, though, and has half as many intergalactic contacts, but he's better than nothing. Actually, he's a pretty good guy to have around in a crisis, but…"

"Hard to track down?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, now what?" Donna asked.

"I have no idea!" Martha shouted. "I've been waiting for _you_!"

"Okay, erm…" Donna said, thinking. "Is the TARDIS still there, in the back garden?"

"Far as I know. I haven't looked, since the Doctor's been gone."

"I've got my key. Let's get inside, and ask the TARDIS to contact the Galactic Council."

"Brilliant!" Martha said, with a huge measure of relief. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're in panic mode," Donna said. "It's all right… Martha, you've got the Doctor out of far worse jams than this. Everything's going to be fine."

Martha took a deep breath, swallowed hard, then followed Donna out the back door.

* * *

The TARDIS didn't have any problem communicating with the Galactic Council, as it turned out. The euphoria of this triumph was, alas, short-lived, however. There was an annoying answering system that required callers, just like on Earth, to press buttons to indicate their business.

" _In order to be put into contact with any being currently in the custody of the Galactic Council, you must submit your Blue-Clearance Credential number,"_ the recording said.

"What? What the hell is that?" asked Donna.

"No idea," Martha said. She reached forward to stroke the Time Rotor. "Can you help us out Old Girl?"

But the TARDIS did not give a groan, nor a response of any kind, and the recording repeated.

"Well, what if we want to talk with someone who is _in charge of_ beings in custody? What then?" Martha asked.

"That wasn't one of the options," Donna said. "Main menu said, general info, event and hearing schedule, speak to a financial advisor, lodge a complaint, or speak to a being in custody."

"Then let's lodge a complaint!"

"Okay," Donna said, cutting off the comm, and asking the TARDIS to place the call again.

" _In order to lodge a complaint with the Galactic Council, you must submit your Red-Clearance Credential number,"_ the recording said.

Martha cursed loudly.

The TARDIS tried again for them, and when they failed even to have the credentials to receive even basic information, a new recording came on, and said, _"We've noticed that this is the third call you have placed – we assume this means you have been unsuccessful in your bid for information and/or satisfaction. If you do not have the required credentials, please press Alpha."_

Donna did this.

" _Welcome, civilian. If you are looking for a hearing schedule, please leave a message requesting this information, after the tone, including the entity being heard, your purpose for attending the hearing, and your contact information. You may expect to hear back from us within ten galactic hours. If you are lodging a complaint on behalf of someone with credentials who is incapacitated, please leave a message after the tone, including the credentialed entity's name, and your complaint. You may expect to hear back from us within ten galactic hours._

" _If you have an acquaintance or loved-one who has recently entered the custody of the Galactic Council, please allow 22 galactic hours for the entity to be processed. All beings in custody are asked to provide a contact outside of the Council for the purposes of defence, bail, and in case of emergency. If you are the contact, you will receive a communiqué within 22 galactic hours, with temporary credentials so as to allow you to bypass the Blue Card system. If you are not the contact that the entity provides, there is nothing we can do for you. Thank you for your concern…_ beep."

"Twenty-two galactic hours?" Martha shrieked. "How long is that?"

A message came up on the TARDIS' computer screen. "Calculating… 55 Earth hours."

"Fifty-five hours? So… like, lunch-time on Monday," Martha sighed. "Great. Isn't there anything else we can do? Don't you know any other way of finding him?"

The TARDIS remained silent and still.

"Martha, it's only a couple of days," Donna said. "In the meantime, we have a meeting to prepare for. Monday at nine – the Doctor won't be back by then, it seems like, so it's up to you and me."

Martha squeaked out, "I can't stand the idea that he's out of our reach." She felt she might begin to hyperventilate. "I can't bear it. I feel like a part of me has been ripped away. And, damn it, if I had just listened to him, and not got in their way, they wouldn't have knocked me out, and I could have had a few hours' head start on all of this…"

"It's no good with the coulda shoulda woulda. He's gone, for now," Donna said, gently. "But you know, the Council have given us a way to get in touch with him – it's not like we have no idea where he is. We just have to _wait_. And what are the odds he'll give them contact info for someone who is not you?"

Martha felt panic rising up then – she felt myriad unpleasant emotions. Anger, desperation, sadness, loneliness…

She pushed down the surge of blinding fear, and forced herself to say, "Okay. You're right. I know you're right."

"So we spend the next two days doing what he'd want us to do, which is…"

"…get ready to spy on Alfred P. Duckworth and his cronies, on Monday morning."

"Yes. Exactly. But first, maybe let's get some sleep?"

"Not gonna happen for me. You sleep if you need to."

"Martha…"

"Just go. I'll be fine."

And she parked herself in vigil on the seat beside the TARDIS console, too wired to sleep, too stricken to cry.


	12. Chapter 12

**In the previous chapter, the Galactic Council's outgoing messaging system gave them a way to get in touch with the Doctor. So now, the Companions must wait. Which could prove problematic, and not just because waiting is torture.**

 **In this chapter, you will see mention of the "Epidromeas," which hearkens back to the previous story, "Keeping with the Enemy." If you'd like a run-down of what happened, please PM me and I'll oblige you! Otherwise, basically what you need to know is right here in the text!**

* * *

TWELVE

It was six hours before Donna and Martha saw one another again.

Martha was coming to, as she could hear Donna's voice coaxing her into wakefulness, and could feel Donna's elbow nudging her arm.

"Martha? Martha? Come on, love, wake up," said Donna, kindly, but at full-voice.

Martha stirred, and realised that her neck hurt.

And slowly, she began to understand that her neck hurt because she had been snoozing sitting up. On the lone seat in the TARDIS console room. She'd fallen asleep with her hand on the side of her face, and her elbow on the back of the chair.

"Ugh," she groaned, trying to untangle herself from the stiffness. "What time is it? I feel like death."

"It's almost ten," Donna said, handing her a cup of coffee in a mug from Martha's own kitchen. "Here, have this. It'll give you a sense of normalcy."

"Thanks," Martha croaked, taking it.

Donna looked her over. "I've gotta admit, last few days, I've hated seeing you in the morning because you look gorgeous even just as soon as you're awake. But today? Not so much."

"I didn't exactly get the beauty sleep I needed," she muttered, clutching the mug tightly.

Donna leaned against the controls, and the two women sipped their coffee in silence together for a few moments. Then, she asked, "Why _did_ you stay in the console room last night? You've got several bedrooms to choose from… infinite space, plus your very own flat."

Martha shrugged, staring down into her cup. "Big bed… couldn't face it alone. Either the one here in the TARDIS, or the one in my flat. I guess… I thought if I hung out right here, I could be closer to him, you know? It's the first time we've had to be apart since…"

"I see," Donna said, stroking Martha's back for comfort.

"I know it's daft, how vulnerable and scared I feel," Martha whispered.

"Well, to be honest, I know I tried to quiet you down last night when you were panicking, but I feel quite vulnerable and nervous as well."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! My best friend is gone, and he's literally been taken in the night, to a _different planet_. That'll mess with your head."

"It will."

"Martha, I still think we should _try_ to keep cool heads and go about our business the way he would want us to. But I must tell you, it's okay to feel like you want to break down and have a psychotic episode, for no reason other than because you love him. I'm just saying."

Martha gave a weak smile. "Okay. Thank you." Then she cleared her throat. "Take my mind off it. Tell me about your date with Colin."

"Was it a date?"

"You tell me!"

"Well, I mean, it was just a coffee out, piggy-backing on a family thing..."

"Just tell me about it, Donna," Martha chuckled.

"It was nice," Donna told her. "He's a real gentleman. We went to The Red-Eye, do you know it?"

"I know _of_ it," Martha said. "I've never been there, but I know it's a place that stays open for when the pubs shut."

"We talked and talked and talked and talked… then we talked some more. He seems, frankly, quite perfect for me," Donna mused, grasping her mug in both hands, staring at the wall with a contented look on her face.

Martha smiled sincerely this time. "That's amazing, Donna – I'm so happy for you! And for Colin. He's had a rough go of it."

"Well, don't get your hopes up too high," Donna sighed. "I mean, I think Colin's brilliant. But I'm balking a bit at seeing him again."

"Why?"

"I just… I have a pattern, you know? When I get to feeling sorry for myself, in the past, in those moments I've become a squib-magnet. And I don't think Colin is a squib of any sort, but… I just tend to leap in, head first, when I'm like this."

"You mean, how you were on Wednesday... with Madeleine?"

"Yeah."

"And Thursday morning, not wanting to travel with us anymore?"

"Yes," Donna said, quietly. "And it's not even about Colin, or any other bloke. It's about me. It's about me breaking a habit. Because… what if it's not that I'm a squib-magnet, Martha? What if it's not that the arseholes of the world find me irresistible when they can see desperation in me, but more to do with me grasping at straws when I'm feeling cast-out? I'll grasp at anything that will make me feel like I don't have to be alone. I have to own that."

"We've all been there, in some form or another."

Donna doubted that Martha could fully understand, but she could hardly say so. She continued talking. "If I tell Colin, 'yeah, great, let's go out again and try to live happily ever after,' – because, believe you me, I'm dying to – even if it works out and he turns out to be every bit as amazing as he seems, and we grow old together, I will never know how strong I am. I will never know if I can say _no_ to the handsome man who seems to happen to want me just now, who seems to be giving me exactly what I so desperately crave at this very moment, when what I _need_ is to sort through myself."

"That makes perfect sense," Martha said. "But I have to say, even though you'll think I'm missing the point: Colin is worth a stab at _happily ever after._ "

Donna smiled. "If that's true, then maybe he'll be gracious enough to give me a chance, when I'm ready."

Martha smiled indulgently. "That's actually a really good point."

After a long silence, during which the two women sipped their respective hot beverages and contemplated their individually currently messed-up romantic situations, Donna asked, "Shouldn't we be prepping for Monday morning? I mean, we can chat about my love life until we're both blue in the face, but that meeting isn't going to spy on itself."

Martha chuckled at this and said, "Yes. And, in that case, come with me."

* * *

The ride to the Galactic Prison's Inner Sanctum had taken twelve hours, even through the Corocoup Wormhole, which seemed weird to the Doctor. It seemed to him that it should take a lot longer than that, at least a couple of days. But he'd been "warehoused" in the back of the space travel vehicle without any way of seeing where they were going, or any of the instruments of the ship.

In that twelve hours, the Doctor had asked at least a thousand questions, and had tried to make conversation. He had even monologued at them, largely out of boredom. He had gone hoarse eventually, and had now given up on trying to glean _anything_ from the thugs who had arrested him. So, he still wasn't sure of the charge against him (though he had a guess), he didn't know whether he'd be able to speak with Judge Mimsi or have Agent Dawray as his representative at the trial. He didn't even know if he'd be able to obtain some clothing when he arrived.

Then again, the whole thing felt odd, not just the lack of communication. It's not like the Doctor was _new_ to being in the custody of the Galactic Council, but this _was_ the first time the arresting agents had a) not announced the charges, b) knocked out the person he was with, c) arrested him with no clothes on, and d) wouldn't speak to him or answer any questions during transport.

When he'd told Martha, "They're from the Galactic Council," he had been ninety per-cent sure that this was true – the environmental suits the agents were wearing had been, as far as he could tell, standard issue.

But when one of them had zapped Martha with the Stupefactor gun, his certainty had dropped a hell of a lot.

Much of what these guys were doing seemed routine, and official. Much of it did not.

But it wasn't non-routine, and unofficial-seeming enough make the Doctor _certain_ he was being kidnapped, not arrested. If these folks weren't from the Council, they at least had a really good idea of how to fake it, and it _had_ been a while since he'd been arrested… maybe some things had changed.

He resolved, as always, to remain on his guard.

Upon arrival, the same agent who had handcuffed him led the Doctor down a long white hallway. The place hummed as though it were on an asteroid, and there were artificial generators keeping it going (which it was, and there were). But no-one was speaking.

Eventually, a man dressed in black appeared in the hallway with a few officers walking behind him. He stopped and addressed the agent, who also stopped, along with the Doctor.

"Is this the Doctor?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Why is he dressed like that?"

The agent still clad in the environmental suit looked him over conspicuously and said, "He was _with_ someone when we found him."

"Oh. And that someone?"

"I administered an hour's worth of Stupefaction."

"Human?" asked the man in black.

The agent looked at the Doctor for confirmation. The Doctor nodded subtly.

"Female?"

"I think so," said the agent. "The voice was higher-pitched, and the skeletal structure was smaller."

"Well, in that case, she'll likely be unconscious for more like two hours," the man in black had the courtesy to say to the Doctor himself. "But she'll be fine. Groggy, but fine. The human brain is actually a lot more resilient than _some_ give it credit for."

"Brilliant. Thanks," the Doctor muttered.

In truth, he'd known that the Stupefactor would not harm her in the long-term, and it _would_ allow the agents to take him, without her getting truly hurt in trying to stop them. He had seen the device come out of the agent's belt, and had basically _let_ him knock her out. He had no certainty that he would have been able to stop it happening if he'd so chosen, but he could have tried. As it was, he reckoned stupefaction would be safer for Martha… which he knew would _infuriate_ her later, when he told her the truth. _If_ he told her, that is.

"I'll notify General Kir that he's here," the man in black said to the agent.

The Doctor was then led into a glass room where several agents in white uniforms now stood facing him, at attention. The escorting agent removed his helmet and environmental suit at that point, and revealed that he was wearing the same white uniform underneath as the others.

"Wow, it's good to get that thing off me!" he exclaimed, throwing it into a corner. "Hello, Doctor, I'm Agent Pym. I'll be in charge of you, during your sojourn here."

"Charmed," the Doctor said to him.

Pym came and stood directly in front of the Doctor and said, "Please confirm that you are the entity known as the Doctor, a Time Lord from Gallifrey, aged nine-hundred-three."

"I confirm," the Doctor sighed.

"Doctor, you are being arrested by the Galactic Council on the charge of murder."

"I figured."

"Approximately three galactic weeks ago, the mutilated remains of an Epidromeas were found on Earth, by said being's fellow operatives. It was discovered, upon pathology reporting, that the energy signature associated with the Epidromeas' cause of death was yours. Or rather, that of your TARDIS."

"Yep. I programmed the TARDIS to throw a shield, and the Epidromeas ran into it at full speed."

"And you did this knowingly? You lured the being in, so as to cause its death?"

"Oh, right, like I'm going to answer that! But I wonder: do you know what that thing was doing? To me? To my friends? People I love? Do you know what it wanted to do to a level-five planet? Do you know what it wanted to do to the Galactic Council itself?"

"Who cares?" asked Agent Pym. Then, he cleared his throat. "I mean, it is of no consequence to me. My function is to make you aware of your circumstances, and keep you alive."

"Fine," the Doctor sighed.

"Please step forward and to your left, and give handprints."

The Doctor did as asked, and another agent took his hands and pressed them onto hot, glass plates for just about as long as the Doctor could stand, and then released him.

Next, he was instructed to take two steps to his right, upon which, a dome-like apparatus came down over his whole body, and sealed him inside. The thing vibrated for about a minute, and a weird light filled the space, and the Doctor understood that his energy signature was being recorded.

After that, Pym took him from that room through the back, and they found themselves in a long hallway, walled on both sides with cell bars.

"You'll be in cell 67. You are prisoner 1106… though I'll just call you Doctor, if that's all right," Pym said.

"It's fine," said the Time Lord, flatly.

They walked about halfway down the corridor, and a cell on the left was chosen for him. Pym let him in using a card key attached to his uniform, then sealed the bars behind him.

"Er, would you be able to find me some clothes?" the Doctor asked.

"That's not standard procedure."

"Well, that's hardly news. There's a lot of _that_ going on here."

Pym didn't say anything, but held the Doctor's eye. "I'll see what I can do. It's not like we just have room after room with spare trousers and shirts laying about, you know. And I'll get into trouble if I give you officer-issued clothing to wear."

"Well, don't you have a uniform for inmates?"

"You're not to that stage yet. You're just being held for trial. After you're convicted, you'll wear the uniform."

"I see. Presumptuous much?"

"Again, I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, if you're cold, there's a blanket."

"Agent Pym?"

"Yes?"

"We walked kind of a long way down this corridor. Why are there no other prisoners here?"

"Oh, there are," answered Pym. "They're on the other side. What do you think – we just have an empty jail? That would be ridiculous."

"It would be ridiculous, indeed."

Agent Pym made to walk away, then the Doctor said, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"What now?"

"My contact."

"Your contact?"

"I'm supposed to give you contact information for someone, like next of kin, so that I can remain in communication with my loved ones, even though I am incarcerated. It's part of _due and civilised process_ , according to the Galactic Constitution, Paragraph 6."

Pym stared at him blankly for a moment. Then he shook it off and said, "Yes, of course. As an agent of the Galactic Council, I'm privy to that info. Let me…" He searched his uniform for something to write with. He found a pen and little pad of paper, and the Doctor explained what sort of frequency Earth's mobile phones use, then gave him Martha's name and number.

Then, Agent Pym walked away, leaving the Doctor watch… and wonder.

* * *

 **Thoughts? Feelings? It would make my day if you'd let me know! :-)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Friends, I know very little about architecture, and I certainly have no real idea whether there is a database like the one used in this chapter. It doesn't, however, seem outside the realm of possibility to me… anyway, if I'm wrong, please be kind. It's sci-fi after all!**

 **Also, don't judge Donna too harshly. ;-)**

* * *

THIRTEEN

Martha led Donna out of the TARDIS, into her flat, and upstairs. She found the enhanced stethoscope on the dresser, right where the Doctor had left it.

"Okay… _this_ is the Doctor's brill idea about ducking Morton T. Hepplewhite's stolen technology?" Donna asked, holding the thing with two fingers, as though it were a dirty sock.

"It's not just a stethoscope, Donna, it's a sonicked-up stethoscope, so that it can hear stuff in another part of the building."

"Oh. Okay. How?"

"It uses ductwork and plumbing," Martha answered. Then, she took the apparatus from Donna, put in the earpieces, and went to the wall she shared with Mrs. Finley, to see what she could hear. "Okay – the TV is on. But not in the bedroom, somewhere else in the house. Take a listen."

Donna tried the earpieces, and her eyebrows raised. "Oh, I see." A pause, then, "How is it that I can tell that the TV is in a different room?"

"It's like you're standing in that room, there," Martha said, indicating the wall. "Let's see if we can find where she actually is."

Martha left the bedroom and moved down the stairs, and Donna followed. She went through the foyer, into the mudroom in the back of the flat, and moved over to the right-hand side of the room, and gestured for Donna to try the stethoscope here.

Donna did, and her face lit up. "Oh, yeah! There she is! She's humming."

Martha whispered (probably needlessly), "But, if you use the ducts…" and then gestured to the floor, where a vent was situated right next to the wall.

Donna crouched, and tried again, pressing the auscultator to the vent. "All I can hear is rushing air," she said. Then, she moved the thing three inches to the right, and pressed it to the floor, immediately beside the vent. She said, "No… I can hear her humming and I can hear the TV, but there's a big reverb."

"How do you mean?" Donna handed off the stethoscope to Martha, who tried it, and understood. "Whoa, it's like she's standing a shower the size of the Grand Canyon."

"Doesn't it?" Donna asked. "So… what? We'll have to use the plumbing?"

"Seems like it," Martha said, handing the device back to her. "There are pipes behind the washing machine, but until Mrs. Finley gets near her own pipes, I don't know if you'll hear much."

Donna pressed the auscultator to the wall behind the washing machine, directly above where she could see pipes connecting to the appliance."

"Okay, that's much better. I can tell that she's watching _Emmerdale Farm –_ she must have recorded it," she said. "Oh wait! The humming is getting louder…"

After a few seconds, Donna could hear water running, and said so.

"Is she in the kitchen?" Martha asked.

"I think so," said Donna. "Sounds like she's making tea… she's just turned off the water, and now I can hear her replacing the top of the kettle. She's got one of those old metal ones that sits on the stove - bless! Keeps her teabags in a drawer. Wow! All this, just because she's got closer to the plumbing?"

"Yep!"

"Wow!"

Martha smiled, and watched Donna delightedly spy on the neighbour for another minute or so, then teased, "Well, I can see you've got your entertainment laid out for you, for the day."

Donna stood up and removed the stethoscope. "This is cool. I take back my sarcastic comment about the Doctor's _brill_ idea. I should've known he'd have something slick up his sleeve."

"Yep," Martha said, turning to walk out of the mud room, and into the kitchen. "But he and I thought it would be a good idea to get hold of the blue prints for the building, so we know exactly where the pipes go, and what kind of interference there might be."

"How do we do that?"

"We'll try online," Martha sighed. "All of the municipal places that store those sorts of things will be closed over the weekend, yeah?"

"I should think," Donna agreed.

"Let's just Google it," Martha said, heading toward the table and chair beside the kitchen window. Donna sat down across from her, and they fired up the laptop. Martha turned it sideways, so that they could both see, and pulled up the Google search page.

Then her shoulders fell.

"What?" asked Donna.

"Did he ever tell you where this place was?"

"No."

"Mention an address? Even a neighbourhood, maybe while I was at work?"

"No!" Donna exclaimed, realising the predicament they were now in.

"How are we going to get the blue prints for a building that we can't name nor locate?"

"I've no idea!" Donna responded, throwing her arms up.

"Great," Martha sighed. "So, we've got an important meeting on Monday morning that may or may not be life or death for this planet, and the only guy who knows where the meeting is, can't be reached until _after_ the meeting."

"Well, shit."

Martha shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Okay, what do we know about the building? I think he said it was only a ground floor and a first floor."

"And he said it was out in the suburbs someplace."

"Right. And the entire first floor has glass walls."

"The ladies' loo is underneath the conference room."

"I think there's a good chance that there's no lift – it seems like he mentioned an open staircase?"

"Okay."

The two of them sat, and tried to think of other characteristics that could help them, but eventually, Martha opened her eyes and said, "This isn't helping."

"Nope."

They were quiet again for a few moments, then Martha said, "Do you suppose an architect might know how to narrow the search?"

"Well, we can ask one, I suppose."

* * *

Within fifteen minutes, Colin Brownhill was knocking on his cousin's front door, carrying a leather messenger bag.

"Hi there," Martha said. "Seeing you twice in two days is quite the treat."

"I know!" he exclaimed, kissing her cheek. "After all that time we didn't talk, and then, poof! Is it synchronicity that you happen to need my help today?"

Donna turned up in the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen just then.

In spite of herself, she had, since Martha had phoned him, taken her hair out of the haystack pile that had been on her head, put on a spot of makeup, and changed into an outfit that made her look like she wasn't trying too hard – cool, calm and carefree. And of course, thin.

"Hi Colin," she said, calmly. "Care for a cup of tea?"

"Of course," he said, moving toward her.

She led him into the kitchen. "Earl Grey with lemon?"

"You remembered."

"Mind like a steel trap," she joked, gesturing to the breakfast bar, where she'd prepared a pot of Earl Grey beside a cup and saucer. "Besides, remembering how people take their tea... part of my job."

"Where's John?" asked Colin, taking a seat.

"He's… out," Martha said, trying to sound nonchalant, while her stomach sank with the reminder. "Cricket club."

She regretted it as soon as it was out of her mouth, because Colin then said, "Ah! A Cricket man, eh? He and I will have to get to know each other much, much better, then! Been a long while since I've had someone I could Cricket about with. Is he in one of the amateur city leagues?"

"No, no, just… the hospital admin, they have their own thing they do, just on the week-ends. Sometimes."

The three of them made small talk about the tea for a few minutes (well, actually just Donna and Colin made small talk), and then he took a sip and said, "So, you ladies are trying to find a building?"

"Yeah," Martha said, uncomfortably. "In a nutshell."

"What does that even mean? _Find_ a building?"

"Well, I've got a temp job at a particular place on Monday morning, and I never caught the address. And since all the temp offices are closed over the week-end…" Donna offered.

Martha thought it was a pretty good cover story, though she hated the fact that they both had to lie to Colin.

"So… how do you think I can help?" asked Colin asked Donna. "I mean, you asked if I knew of a database…"

"I know a few things about the building," Donna said. "Some of those things might be architectural features, that could be accessed via a database… if there is one."

"There is one. Hang on." He reached down to the floor and pulled up his messenger bag, and extracted a laptop. "You've got to have a particular programme on your computer in order to access it… just give it a second… ugh, it's updating."

So, they all waited.

Eventually, Colin sat up straight, and said, "All right. Shoot."

Donna then named off all the things she knew about the building in question.

"Okay…" Colin said, and then he seemed to kit the _enter_ key, with flourish. "It's thinking. How do you know all this stuff about the building, if you don't know where it is?"

"I had a one-off job there, a long, long time ago… like right when I started temping," she answered, lying rather easily. "The owner and I remembered each other on the phone, so I just said, _sure, I remember, I'll be there!_ Only this morning, I realised, I have memories of the interior, but remember nothing about the neighbourhood or how to get there…"

"I see," Colin said, his eyes shifting down to the screen.

Martha and Donna took that moment to look at each other with worry. Neither could tell whether he was believing any of this.

Though, at worst, Martha reckoned, he might think that it was a ruse for Donna to have him come round. He would not be imagining that they were up to anything else.

Results had come up on the screen, and Colin told them the suburban address, which Martha very quickly jotted down.

"Built in 1978. One open staircase, ground floor and first floor only. In 2002, the first floor was gutted, and all the walls were replaced with glass. It appears to be the only office building of any sort within about fifteen kilometres – everything else is homes or retail. And, it's licenced to a shell company."

"Well, that stands to reason," Donna muttered.

"Why so?"

She chuckled. "It just does… I mean, isn't _everything_ licenced to a shell company in the end?"

Martha was dying to see whether she could get the blue prints, now she had the address, but she didn't want to drag her cousin any further into this weirdness, nor take Donna's attention away from him. She quietly shifted into the parlour and pretended to organise her roll-top desk, while Donna and Colin chatted each other up. She could still hear them, but rather wished that she couldn't.

Just as she was about to retire to the bedroom upstairs with the door shut and music on, she heard her cousin ask, "So… may I assume that since you brought me over here just to find a building, that you have changed your mind about my offer for tonight? French food, and _Silent Light_?"

Donna actually took a pause here, and Martha wondered if she was feigning the _let me think about it_ moment, or whether she was actually thinking about her self-effacing "pattern" with men, and all the stuff she'd said to Martha a couple of hours ago in the TARDIS.

In any case, Donna said, "Well, I suppose since you helped me out today…"

"Wonderful!" Colin exclaimed, and Martha could hear the barstool move hastily away from the counter, as though he'd stood up and nudged it. "I'll be back here at seven to collect you."

"All right, but listen," Donna said. "I'm not really into artsy films – I'm not as intellectual as all that."

"Well, then, we'll see something at the Hollywood Cinema in my neighbourhood. Or go bowling. Or something else – I don't care! We'll play it by ear. I just want to spend the evening with you, okay?"

"Okay," Donna said, sheepishly.

"Okay. Well, I'd better go, then… I've got a few things to do before our date," he said. Then he called out, "Bye Martha!"

She met him in the foyer, and said her goodbyes, and Colin saw himself out.

The two women's eyes met across the space. Martha must not have been hiding her thoughts as well as she'd thought, because Donna said, "What? It's just to say _thanks for your help._ "

"One trip out... just to say thanks?"

"Maybe."

"That sounds bloody familiar." Martha muttered, cynically. "Donna, what about your _pattern_?"

"I'm going to try and steer him away from the cinema, or anything where we're sitting close together in the dark, all right? And I fully planning on going Dutch for dinner."

"That's your idea of putting the brakes on an unhealthy habit?"

"What's your game, eh?" Donna asked, face scrunching up. "What happened to, _Colin is worth a stab at happily ever after?_ "

"I still believe that," Martha told her. "But Donna, if you're going to go out on this date, and then try to keep him at arm's length, you need to tell him why."

"Arm's length?"

"Yeah. Steering him away from the dark. Going Dutch. Flirting like a maniac, then acting like it's just a _thank you_ date. The Doctor did that sort of rubbish to me in the first year, and it almost crushed me."

"I know what I'm doing, Martha," Donna assured her, half condescendingly.

Martha ploughed ahead, though. "If you're going to keep true to what you said to me earlier, and try and keep yourself from rushing in, let him know that. Just tell him you want to go slow. Tell him you've been depressed because…" Martha stopped then, and swallowed hard. "Because you've been in close quarters with me and the Doctor, and that you're afraid of…what was the phrase you used? Grasping at straws? Doing anything, just so you don't have to be alone."

"Fine, I'll tell him all my deepest darkest secrets, shall I?"

"I'm saying, don't just play stupid games with him. He's not like me. He's a lot more sensitive, and he'll shut you out, a lot sooner than you'll be prepared for."

* * *

Colin knocked on the door again at seven, sharp.

Donna had been upstairs, borrowing Martha's en-suite bathroom, for the purposes of primping. She came down the stairs in a new, royal purple v-neck dress, perfect, bulky, bold ringlets in her hair, and smoky, cat-like makeup. She looked nothing like a woman who was about to go out on a simple _thank you_ excursion.

Donna let Colin into the house, and he too looked as though he were heartily interested in this date.

Upon entering, he made over Donna as though she were gold. Then, he bade hello to Martha, who was sitting on the sofa in work-out shorts and an oversized tee-shirt (which Donna knew was the Doctor's, and that it hadn't been washed since he'd worn it), watching television with a container of Chinese food on her lap.

"We're off, then," Donna said, with no hint of the irritation she'd been showing earlier. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, you're looking rather… _comfy_ for a Saturday night," Colin commented. "Don't tell me John is still out playing Cricket."

"He loves the sport," Martha said, weakly. "He does the full-day thing."

"That doesn't seem right," Colin said. "He's got a beautiful woman at home, and…"

"Colin, don't worry about it," Martha interrupted, now sounding exhausted. "It's fine. It's not what it looks like. This isn't how I spend my Saturday nights, typically, okay?"

"She's telling the truth, Colin," Donna explained. "John is absolutely not _that guy._ He doesn't play Cricket at the expense of everything else. In fact, he's…"

"Donna," Martha said, interrupting again, afraid that Donna might say too much. "You don't have to do that. Just go on your date. Have fun."

"Seriously, you're okay?"

"I'm fine. Just… looking forward to Monday."

"Me too," Donna said, taking her hand and squeezing it. "Good night, love."

Feelings of dread came over her, as Martha waved Donna and Colin out the door

At first, she thought it was just that the tables had turned a bit; Donna was off on a thrilling hot date, and Martha was home alone, despondent, wondering.

But it wasn't that. Being alone when others were out playing, this wasn't the sort of thing that would bother Martha Jones.

Was it because she was genuinely afraid that Donna might play games with Colin's heart, in spite of the fact that she was clearly smitten with him?

Well, not really. Martha thought that this was a possibility, but she ultimately thought that Donna was far too clever to let that happen. And far too nice.

She realised, with a measure of shame, that she was apprehensive about Donna now having "somewhere to go." That is to say, she now had something to stay on Earth for, other than her granddad.

She now had something that might prevent her from changing her mind about leaving the TARDIS, and to Martha, that was the most nerve-wracking part of all of this.

* * *

 **Okay, I'm sure you're having some thoughts about Donna right now... why not share them with me? Thank you for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Okay, now, seriously... don't judge Donna! I tried to back her into a sort of corner where they need his help, and he's really clever and, well... what's a Companion to say?**

 **Apart from all that, this chapter proved much fun to write. I love scenes like this! Especially one with a quality cliffhanger at the end! ;-)**

 **Also, again I will point out, I don't know much at all about architecture, reading blue prints. Feel free to correct me, but please be kind. (I know that a standard blue print does not show plumbing... more details are in the following chapter.)**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

FOURTEEN

Dinner with Colin had been, as expected, brilliant. Hands-down, the best date of her life.

During dinner, they'd begun talking about Madame Tussaud's, so they'd decided to go there after dinner, and walk about. They'd made slight nuisances of themselves, laughing at the wax figures, doing voices, poking a bit of fun.

At Tussaud's Donna had received a text from Martha: "Got the blue prints but can't read them. I'm a doctor, not an architect, hint, hint."

A few minutes later, she received another: "I've saved the PDF to my computer desktop – filename PLUMBING BLUE. Maybe you and C.B. could have a nightcap?"

Donna had been able to step behind a plant briefly, and text back, "Ok," but that was all.

About five minutes after that, she received a third text: "Going to bed now, in the blue box. The flat is yours. Good night, my friend."

After the wax museum, Donna and Colin had wandered into The Regent's Park a block away, and set about a late-night stroll. They then had run across a gazebo where a brass jazz band was playing bluesy, night music, and about fifty people were sitting around the gazebo on blankets or lawn chairs, listening. So they'd stopped to listen for a bit from a park bench, then, when people had begun to dance, they had joined in.

She realised with some measure of regret (though not much) that she had utterly failed to avoid romantic situations with Colin. They'd swapped sitting side-by-side in a dark cinema for dancing cheek-to-cheek in the park. And when he'd leaned in for a kiss a few times, she hadn't pulled away.

Unplanned, but still a bit unwise.

Though not, by any means, unpleasant.

By the time the band was packing up, it was just after midnight. They walked to the high street and hailed a taxi, and arrived at the foot of Martha's front steps about ten minutes later. The two of them got out of the car, and Colin asked the driver to wait.

"I hate to say good night," Colin told her with a sigh. "It means it has to end for now."

Having received Martha's text regarding the blue prints, Donna had known she'd need to find some reason for Colin to come into the flat with her. She realised that there was nothing she could say now, that would end with him coming into the flat with her, that _wouldn't_ result in him reading into her intentions.

 _In life with the Doctor, we do what we have to do. If I was willing to give my life in Pompeii, I can certainly bite this particular bullet._

She tried to hide her nervousness, and said, before she could change her mind, "Unless you'd like to come in for one last drink. Or maybe tea?"

"Really?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

She gulped, and managed a nod. "Martha's out. They both are."

"Oh," he replied, again, surprised. He looked up at the flat with an expression that seemed to indicate the weighing of options. "Are you certain?"

"Yeah," she said. After a long pause, she took a breath. "Erm, look, Colin, to be honest, I need your help with something. I know we already asked for your help earlier today, but we have yet another thing that needs… well, an architect's eye."

"Oh," he repeated, though his tone had changed to a more accepting, finalised one. "Okay then – lead on."

She could see that learning that she wasn't necessarily out for a first-date shag had put him a bit more at ease. Though she wasn't sure how to her ego felt about that, she decided to view it with her sensible mind, as a fortuitous triumph of communication and practicality.

Upon entering the flat, they turned right and went into the kitchen. Donna noticed straight away that a bottle of Bailey's Irish Creme had been left on the counter. She reckoned that it was meant as a courtesy to her and Colin, a bit of encouragement to get them to sit down, and spend a bit more time. Preferably talking about blue prints.

"What d'you think? Bailey's, or tea?" she asked, indicating the bottle.

"Do I need to remain sharp?"

"Let's go with tea," Donna decided, and she filled the kettle with water, and plugged it in. Actually, tea was her way of being prudent, in a slightly-outside-of-prudent situation.

"So, what do you need help with?" asked Colin.

She spied Martha's laptop on the table by the window, and brought it over to the breakfast bar where Colin was seated. She sat down beside him and fired up the computer, double-clicked on the appropriate icon, and a confusing image of a building popped up on the screen. It seemed to Donna to have about four hundred more _lines_ than needed.

"Okay, we need to know if there is a pipe that goes from the ladies' washroom on the ground floor, either to or through the conference room on the first floor. Would you be able to tell us, from this blue print? Because frankly, it makes no bloody sense to Martha nor me."

Colin squinted at it for a few moments, and then he looked at Donna with amused suspicion.

"What?" she asked. "Is this not in your wheelhouse?"

"What's going on, Donna?"

She sighed, and buried her face in her hands, momentarily. "I was afraid you were going to ask that."

"Well, can you blame me?" he chuckled. He turned to his right, swinging his legs to the side of the barstool, facing her squarely. "First, tell me one thing. Give it to me straight."

"Okay, what?"

"Promise. Promise you won't lie or sugar-coat or what-have-you."

She took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Do you really like me?"

This had been nothing like the sort of question she'd been expecting. Nevertheless, she answered immediately. "Yes!"

"I mean, it's okay if you don't. I just need to know."

"No! Colin, I do like you! I just… I'm… what's brought this on?"

He smiled uneasily and rested his elbow on the counter, forehead against his thumb and forefinger. "Well, last night you seemed reluctant to see me again."

"I wasn't reluctant to see you again. It's just… being with Martha and the Doctor… I mean, I'm so, so happy for them, but it's…"

"And that's another thing," Colin interrupted. "When you say _the Doctor_ , you mean John, right? Martha's beau?"

Donna looked at him with wide eyes, and a perfect "oh" forming her lips. Then she smiled. "Oh, yes. That's what we call him."

"Okay. Because you mentioned _the Doctor,_ several times tonight… eventually, from context, I sussed out who you meant."

"Well…" she began, unsure of what she might say next.

"Okay, another question: did you and he used to... you know?" Colin asked.

"What?"

"I mean, is he, like, your ex?"

"Who, the Doctor? John?"

"Yeah."

"No! God, no!"

"All right," he said, evenly. "Then, are you three involved in some kind of… trio… situation? Like the three of you are a couple? I mean, I've seen that sort of thing before."

"No!" Donna was practically shouting now. " _They_ are a couple. I am single. Or rather… I'm seeing you. Unless I'm not, unless… maybe I've spoken too soon. Oh… but… oh, Colin, dear God! What's making you ask this?"

"You talked tonight about when you and the Doctor used to travel together, just the two of you. It made me wonder if he's an ex."

"I said that?"

"Yeah."

She gave a slow, hard exhale. She'd got so comfortable with him, damn it, she'd slipped!

"Oh, well… "

"And you were very quick to defend him, when I thought he was perhaps playing too much Cricket, which I admit, I shouldn't have said, because it's none of my business. I just don't like seeing Martha left in the lurch."

"Okay, well…"

"You also mentioned how your mum doesn't trust the Doctor, and neither does Francine, and you said, 'who could really blame them? But he's worth it – he's worth all the trouble.' What the hell does that mean?"

"Oh, God… Colin…"

She mentally kicked herself. Had she had _that_ much wine? She remembered saying a few of those things, but she thought she was being more vague than that. Was Colin just super-clever like Martha, and picking up on things, or had _she_ totally blown it?

"But clearly, he's with Martha. I can see it when they look at each other… But then it seems like you have a totally separate thing with the Doctor."

"It's not a _thing_ , Colin," she sighed. "It's complicated. They are my best mates… especially him. But there is nothing weird going on. At least not _weird_ in the sense that you seem to think."

He paused, then asked, evenly, "Is the Doctor really playing Cricket?"

She sighed, and massaged the back of her neck. Suddenly, she felt very tense.

The kettle went _ping_ , and she stood and did what British people do when they're not sure what to say: she made the tea.

She came round to the stools again, and handed Colin his Earl Grey with lemon. She took hers straight.

"Colin, the Doctor isn't just a Doctor. He's… not what he seems."

"I'm starting to get that. He's quiet, slightly evasive, and the way you talk about him, he has bizarre relationships with women. Or maybe I'm just being old-fashioned."

"You're not wrong. Except about the quiet bit.""

"Look, you are one thing. I like you – I just want to make sure you're available, and not tied up with some other bloke. I'd like to see more of you… by that, I mean, see you again and often."

"Good, thanks."

"But Martha is a whole different matter. I've always thought of myself as something of a big brother to her, and I couldn't bear it if I thought she was in a relationship with someone who's… dodgy, or dangerous, or putting her in danger."

Again, Donna had no idea what to say. The Doctor was all of those things, but of course, she and Martha knew without a doubt that he was _good_. Flawed in the extreme, but unquestionably a good soul. A good man. A force for good. Et cetera, et cetera.

"Martha is fully clear about who and what the Doctor is," Donna said. "And no, he hasn't been playing Cricket."

"What's with the plumbing blue prints? And the database inquiry this morning?"

"Colin, if you don't want to help…"

"I want to help," he said. Then he stood up, came round to her side of the counter, and put his hands on her upper arms. "But please understand, Donna. I have been hurt. Badly. Recently. I want to take this risk with you, but I can't, if I think you're just trying to get something out of me."

Her heart sank. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "I never… I'm so…"

He sighed, smiled a bit sadly, then sat down and concentrated on the blue prints. "Well, obviously, each one of the ladies' toilets has piping that goes into the walls behind, see?" he said, indicating lines on the screen that seemed to represent plumbing. "And the gents' next door has the same. It all leads downward, into… well, you know. And here, you can see that all three sinks have pipes that go upwards into the wall behind, and they meet here, to become one larger pipe. But…"

Donna waited. Eventually, he talked again.

"See, the first floor doesn't have much in the way of plumbing. There isn't a toilet or a sink or anything up there… so why do the pipes go up, not down?" he asked himself. His index finger followed along the screen and he muttered to himself a bit. Then, "Okay, I see. Here's the conference room. There's a pipe that runs under it, and then through an outer wall, and it goes to a faucet on the roof."

"There's a faucet on the roof? What for?"

"Dunno. I saw it once before on a building that was supposed to have another floor on, but the developers ran out of money. That's probably it."

"Okay. Weird. And lucky. Tell me, if I were in the ladies' right now, and I wanted to locate the pipe that connects with all three of the sinks, how would I find it?"

"Looks like it's about, oh, a foot, maybe eighteen inches, to the right of the sink in the middle."

"And it stretches upstairs and runs under the floor of the conference room?"

"Yeah, look here… see that L-shape?"

"Yeah."

"That's under the conference room. It changes direction."

"Is that weird?"

"I don't think so," he told her, shrugging again.

She smiled at him, and threw his arms around his neck. "Thank you, Colin!"

"You're welcome," he said. "Please tell me I didn't just help you, or John, or the Doctor, or God help me, _Martha_ do something illegal."

She sighed again, and sank back down in the chair. "Okay, Colin. I'm going to level with you."

"Thank God. I know I have no right to expect it, but I'm gun-shy, Donna. And…" he smiled sheepishly. "The way I feel right now… I can't believe I just met you last night."

"I can't believe it either," she agreed.

 _So comfy with you that I'm spilling secrets all over the place…_

"First off," she began, thinking of Martha's advice earlier tonight. "I need to tell you this: I need to go slow."

"With me?"

"Yes."

"No problem," he said. "Slow is my speed, just now. Trust issues and whatnot."

"Martha insisted that I tell you that, so that you wouldn't just think I was keeping you at arm's length for no good reason. I thought she was overstepping then, but I can see now that she was absolutely right."

"Martha's clever."

"Someday soon, I will tell you _why_ I need to go slow, but not tonight. We don't have enough _tonight_ for that story. Or, stories – plural. Or enough Bailey's."

"Understood."

"The next thing I'm going to tell you, it's only because I've decided to trust you. Just now, I've decided. I'm trusting you with my heart, almost in spite of myself, so, there are some things you need to know. And you're going to think I'm barmy, and/or lying to you, but I need you not to think that. I need you to give me a chance to prove myself."

"Uh-oh."

She took a deep breath. "I said, the Doctor is not what he appears. Actually, he's an investigator of sorts."

"Like a PI?"

"No," she said. "Alien activity. Temporal phenomena."

"Excuse me?"

"He travels all over, putting out fires. Whenever Earth is under the gun…"

" _Earth_?" Colin shouted incredulously. "Are you fucking serious? Pardon my French."

"I am... fucking serious," she echoed, steadily. "I told you you'd have a hard go of it, believing me, but please hear me out."

"Okay. Continue," he said, surprisingly calmly.

"Martha travelled with him for a couple of years, helping him… do what he does. Then, she decided to stop, and I came aboard."

"Aboard, meaning… on the payroll?"

"No, literally aboard his… vessel. There is no payroll. He does it all for the greater good, without thanks, without asking anything in return. And anyone who helps him does the same."

"So, he's the saviour of the Earth, and the world's foremost über-philanthropist," he said, scepticism and sarcasm colouring his voice. "So… he's Jesus?"

"Colin, please," Donna sighed. "After I came on, there was a _thing_ that needed sorting in Mallorca, and Martha got involved again, and that's when the two of them sort of… reconnected."

"He's not a hospital administrator at all?"

"No, it was just a lie they told, to explain how Martha might have met him."

"How _did_ she meet him? What, was she attacked by aliens?"

"Yeah, sort of. And so was I, that's how I met him, too."

He looked at her with cautious scrutiny, and Donna was beginning to regret having told him any of this… and she hadn't even told him the weirdest bits yet.

 _The Doctor is an alien, and he travels through time. Martha and I have been to outer space with him. Cue sectioning._

She stared down at the floor. "You don't trust me anymore do you?" Donna asked him.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I know you asked me to give you the benefit of the doubt, but…"

"You don't believe me."

"It's not that I don't believe you," he said. "I can believe that most of it, if not all of it, is true – that there are people who investigate this sort of stuff. It's just that I think it all sounds really dodgy. And I can't believe my cousin involved in it."

"It's not dodgy," she said. "It's real."

"You'll forgive me if I have a bit of trouble with this, Donna."

"Yeah," she sighed.

"So… what exactly am I helping the three of you do, with my architecting brain?"

"There's a supposed mergers and acquisitions firm that's involved in something potentially bit, and potentially hazardous."

"Something alien?"

"Maybe, but almost definitely something temporal."

"Something to do with _time_?"

"Yes. It's kind of the Doctor's bread and butter. Time."

"Whatever that means. Go on – what about this firm?"

"Well, we don't know quite yet what they're up to, just that it's not good. On Monday morning, they're having a meeting, and I'm supposed to eavesdrop. The only way I can do that without being detected is if I don't go in there with any tech. Only this _device_ that the Doctor made, in order to listen to people via the plumbing."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Maybe," she shrugged. "Life with the Doctor tends to be. We accept it."

"We?"

"Martha and I. And the Doctor, actually. He _could_ stop trouble-shooting and fixing things, but… well, no he couldn't, really. He could never sit still, and he could never not be a hero." She laughed just a bit, thinking about it – the Doctor's sometimes silly disposition and goofy look, juxtaposed against the dark side of him that she and Martha had discussed. The side of him that had blown up stars and planets, killed innocents, and yet tried every day to atone and make the universe a better place.

"Donna…"

"Look, I understand if this is too much. I understand if you don't believe me. But, before you get up and leave here tonight, and call in the Butterfly-Net Brigade, will you let me show you something?"

"What?"

"Something that will convince you that everything I've said is true. That the Doctor, Martha and I work against _real_ alien threats, and do stuff that's nearly impossible to believe."

"I'll let you show me. I make no guarantees, however," he told her, with a smile.

"Now, I have to warn you… it might, well, blow your mind... just a bit," she said. "Also, it might make the Doctor murder me, but… at least you're Martha's cousin, and not some hapless bloke off the streets. And you've helped us out now twice in his absence… so it's okay. Isn't it? Yes, I'm sure it's okay."

Rationalising was a bad idea, she knew, but Colin honestly _was_ someone who had great potential to become very important to her. And no matter how hard she tried, she was never going to be able to cut ties with the Doctor, even if she did decide ultimately not to do the TARDIS thing anymore.

"It's _that_ secret, eh?"

"Sort of, yeah," she said. "And again, I have to warn you… this is big."

"I can take it."

"Big… and also, as it happens, small."

"Donna."

"Okay," she sighed. "Blimey, this is mad. I just hope I can be forgiven. Come with me."

She took him by the hand and led him to the back door.

When she opened the door however, she let out a loud expletive. Colin leaned out the door to see what she was cursing about.

"It's not here!" she cried out.

"There's _nothing_ here. What are you shouting about?"

"It's gone!" she practically shrieked, and she walked through the area where the TARDIS had been parked, last she saw it. "It was right here!"

"What was?"

"The TARDIS! Which means… oh my God! Where's Martha? She said she was going to sleep in there tonight…"

Donna ran back inside the house and up the stairs. She threw open Martha's bedroom door, and found no-one there.

Colin remained at the bottom of the stairs. "Donna, what's happened?"

"The Doctor's been arrested, the TARDIS is gone, I don't know where, with Martha inside! What the hell am I supposed to do now?" she cried at him.

"What's a TARDIS?" he asked. Then his expression changed. "Oh my God, you're really panicked, aren't you?"

* * *

 **Uh-oh!**

 **What are your thoughts?**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hi friends! Don't know about you, but for me, it's been a doozie of a week! Among other problems, I almost lost my computer data, which would have meant re-writing the next five chapters!**

 **When last we saw Martha, she was wearing the Doctor's tee-shirt and settling in for an evening alone (as the Doctor is currently incarcerated), while Donna went out on a date with Colin.**

 **When last we saw Donna, she'd come back from her date, and had decided to throw caution to the wind, and basically let Colin in on her very weird life. She had told him that she, Martha, and the Doctor are a team, of sorts, who investigate extra-terrestrial and temporal phenomena. She hadn't yet told him that the Doctor himself is an extra-terrestrial and that they travel through time.**

 **Although, in the end, she had decided to prove that she wasn't crazy, by showing him the TARDIS' interior, and just crossing her fingers that the Doctor wouldn't be too angry... except the TARDIS was gone! As was Martha! Colin was uncertain about the whole thing, but could see the very genuine panic in Donna's eyes...**

 **Here we go!**

* * *

FIFTEEN

At some point during her evening alone, while Donna was out with Colin, Martha had found the wherewithal to search for the blue prints on the building that Colin had located for them, and where the Monday meeting would be. There was a fee, and she'd entered her credit card number, in exchange for the PDF file.

Further research indicated that in order to find specific piping, they would need _plumbing_ blue prints. She paid another fee, and downloaded another PDF.

But when the images came up on her laptop screen, she groaned, realising that it was a whole bunch of lines and codes that she could not decipher at all. Why had she and Donna thought they could just _do_ this? How had they believed that the skill-sets of a physician and an administrative assistant might help with reading the structure of an office building?

Martha was discouraged, and exhausted from thinking and worrying, so she decided to retire to bed around ten o'clock. She'd contemplated waiting up for Donna and Colin, if for no other reason than to ask her cousin to help them read the blue prints. But she reckoned she didn't want to get in their way when they came back, for a number of reasons, and decided just to send Donna a text.

"Got the blue prints but can't read them. I'm a doctor, not an architect, hint, hint," she wrote to Donna. Then she sent a second message. "I've saved the PDF to my computer desktop – filename PLUMBING BLUE. Maybe you and C.B. could have a nightcap?"

"Ok," came a text about five minutes later. Acknowledgement, but nothing committal.

"Going to bed now, in the blue box. The flat is yours. Good night, my friend," Martha texted back.

With that, Martha tucked the phone into her back pocket, and pulled a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream out of a cabinet and left it on the clean kitchen counter for Donna and Colin. She left the foyer light on, made sure that the front door was locked, then slipped out the back door, locking it behind her as well.

Then, she let herself into the TARDIS, shutting herself inside. At this, she finally exhaled. And with breath, came tears. The TARDIS groaned in commiseration.

The Doctor was very likely fine. But the trauma of being startled in the night, seeing him taken, of having been attacked and incapacitated by his captors, and now having to _wait_ another eighteen hours for contact with him… it was, as Donna had suggested, making her want to have an _episode_ of some sort. She wasn't entirely sure of _why_ he'd been arrested, and was fuming over the idea that he could just be carted off, with no explanation of what he'd supposedly done. What if he was being framed for some egregious crime, and he went through a whole rigged trial, and then went to prison? What if his sentence lasted longer than her lifetime? She might very well have just effectively _lost_ the Doctor, and hadn't even had the chance to say a proper goodbye. So much still to say and do and see together…

She knew she was getting ahead of herself, and that wasn't good. But it had now been about twenty hours since the Doctor's unceremonious forced exit, during which she'd spent a lot of time clamming-up for Donna and Colin's sakes, and thinking, thinking, thinking. And thinking some more.

She was a strong woman, but a woman in love. Fear, emptiness, and uncertainty streamed hotly down her face now, and she didn't care. She just missed him now, and wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms, and listen to him tell her he loved her, and that everything would be all right.

She walked the halls of the TARDIS slowly, careful not to venture too far into places unknown, while she wept cathartic, exhausted tears. But when she came to his bedroom door, she relaxed a bit. She had never been inside this room, but somehow, just seeing the Gallifreyan graphics engraved upon the door, this evidence of his presence – it made her feel calmer.

She went into the room, and found it a mess – this was comforting also, like a life-size diorama of his mind. Books, gadgets and pin-striped clothing were strewn about everywhere. She could see that there was a sunken seating area to her right that rarely, if ever, got used, because the sofas seemed mostly to function as an organisational system for piles of paper. His wardrobe sat open, and the steps leading up to a library loft were covered with tomes and volumes and pamphlets, with only a narrow path that would allow someone (someone agile) to go up and down.

Only the bed was clear of debris, though it was unmade. One side was, anyhow – the left side. The right side was made, and undisturbed. She reckoned that the last time he'd slept here was probably the same night that the two of them had discovered their explosive rapport together, in Mallorca. Since then, they'd been together _outside_ of the TARDIS, staying in hotels and bungalows, and in her flat in London.

In the past seven weeks since they'd become a couple, they had only _not_ made love three nights: twice in Mallorca (once after she'd had some shellfish that hadn't agreed with her stomach, and once because they had decided to spend the night on the beach by the fire, and knew they could be seen from the houses across the lagoon), and of course, tonight.

Their relationship had been, as she'd told Donna, intense. They were incendiary together, electromagnetic. They could scarcely be prone in each other's presence without the interaction running to lustful. Sleep was always secondary. Sometimes they couldn't even be _upright_ in each other's presence, such that it made her wonder how the hell they could have survived that first year together, with absolutely _nothing_ physical happening. Donna had seen this spark in them from the very start, and that's why she'd helped them find each other.

The prospect of engaging in sex forty-six nights out of forty-nine (ish) might have once seemed draining and frankly, overkill, to her. But these had been the seven hungriest, fullest, most vibrant and fulfilling weeks of her life. His company was half of the equation – the half that she had always had, even when he didn't seem to return her feelings. This was his voice, his mind, the adventure and adrenaline that was his life. This was also the attraction, and the quickening of her heartbeat when she looked at him – the way he moved, the suit, the lips, the hair…

The other half of the equation was the sparking, frenetic physical bond they now had. The way they could send each other spinning out of control, traumatise each other with teasing or crashing or euphoria… or even pain. The way they could make each other feel all of life, just by being together, and allowing themselves to combust.

"I've lived a long, long time, Martha Jones," he had whispered to her once, half-wrecked against the pillow, while delirium and fire died down in the dark. "And I know what _alive_ is. _This_ is alive."

She knew that this pace couldn't last forever. Familiarity would set in, or fatigue, or both. They would have ups and downs, dry spells, rows, heartache. No long-term relationship was without those things, and rarely did the intoxication of the first year's fervour remain a part of a sexual relationship that endured for years. This was okay. Hopefully the explosions would give way someday (not too soon) to something solid. Real love, trust, comfort. A partnership – whatever that may mean. She looked forward to finding out, though, she hoped the fire would never _completely_ leave them. Really, how could it?

For now, though, she was ecstatic just to take advantage of the new-relationship zeal they were having now. The romance, the decadence… sex, food, laughter, innuendo…

When the Doctor was arrested, it was like a hole had been gouged out of her in the middle of the night – a hole shaped like both the present and the future.

She sighed, took her phone out of her pocket, and set it upon the Doctor's night table, beside a lamp, and on top of a pile of books. She shed the shorts she was wearing, and her underpants for good measure, then manoeuvred her bra off through her sleeve. She threw it all into a pile and crawled into the Doctor's bed, wearing only his burgundy tee-shirt.

She sank down into the soft, cool, tan sheets, and pulled the blankets over herself. She turned on her side, and took an indulgent, deep breath. Her head was filled then with the scent of him – all the scents of him. His sweat and skin, that particular combo of his laundry soap and after-shave, and whatever it was that he used in his hair. The sheets, his tee-shirt, his pillow, enveloping her – there was no part of her that was not wrapped in something of him, and his life and scent.

She closed her eyes, knowing that _this_ was the most comfortable she could possibly be, without him by her side, and prepared to slide into sleep.

* * *

The Doctor had been given a stack of books and a meal. When Agent Pym returned, he was finished with the meal, and the tray was lying near the front of the bars. The Doctor himself was sitting on his cot, his bare back against the bars behind him, leafing through a book about the eventual fall of the Medusa Cascade.

"Hello," said the agent. "I'll be taking your tray now."

"Okay," the Doctor said. "Do you need the books back, too?"

"No, go ahead and keep them. Let me know when you need more."

"Thanks."

"I also need to inform you, it's nearly time for your audience with General Kir."

"Ah. And he would be?"

"He's in charge of the Inner Sanctum – the prison," Pym told him. "We all answer to him."

"Why does he want to see me?"

"I have no idea," Pym said. "Honestly. I was just told to inform you of his imminent arrival."

However, it was at least another hour before anyone else appeared at the bars to speak to the Doctor.

When someone did, it was a man taller than him, and broader, wearing an official-looking green uniform. Though, the Doctor noted, he had never seen an officer of the Galactic Council, of any rank, wearing this colour. In his journeys through legality and galactic insanity, he'd met officers and agents of every possible ilk – _never_ had he seen a green uniform in the Council.

To his surprise, General Kir was quite affable.

"Doctor?" said the man, boisterously. "I'm General Kir. It's a pleasure to meet you." He extended his hand through the bars, and the Doctor stood up, crossed the cell, and shook it.

"What can I do for you, General?" he asked.

"I'm glad you asked that, Doctor," said the General. "Me and mine, we're in a bit of a pickle."

"You and yours, eh? What sort of _pickle_?" the Doctor asked, with scepticism.

"Well, an organisation that I work for is attempting to heal a rift in history, created between World War II on Earth, and the current temporal position," the General explained.

"A rift?"

"Yes… shall we call it, a temporal anomaly that has been causing localised pockets and whatnot. There are _issues_ , because of some… _looping_ phenomena."

"Looping? What are you talking about? What localised pockets? You sound like a maniac."

"I'm not a maniac," said the General. "This is quite real."

"This is Earth you're talking about, yeah?"

"Of course."

"If there were some sort of temporal folding phenomenon, causing localised time pockets on Earth, between World War II and 2008, I'd know about it, believe me. My _bones_ would know about it!" he said. He took a pause, and studied the man in front of him. "This is my department, General, what business do you lot have in trying to repair any of this, even if it _were_ real?"

The General looked at the floor, lost his smile, and cleared his throat. "That, alas, is none of your concern, Doctor. What _is_ your concern is the fact that you are now our prisoner, and are required to help us."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll be here indefinitely," the General said his genial manner having somewhat returned. "For you, that's saying quite a lot, or so I'm told."

The Doctor looked the General over, feeling more than ever that something was not right. "General, since I arrived here, Agent Pym has made it a point to quote the Galactic Constitution at me, paragraph for paragraph, even though he seems to be somewhat unaware of what the Council's very own protocol states. I was cuffed, arrested, transported, fingerprinted, signature-extracted, all in an official capacity. And when I say, _official_ , I mean, official-like. Lots of effort has been expended to let me know that I am in the custody of the Galactic Council, all very prim and proper and letter-of-the-law, and all that.

"And so, I ask you," the Doctor continued. "If you are so keen to stick to the rules and preserve the integrity of your precious institution and your precious documents, then how can you threaten to keep me here forever, if I don't help you with your pet project? Eh? What happened to _due process_ , and _the rights of the living_?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Doctor," the General said softly, though without malice.

"Rubbish. I was arrested for murder, so I expect to be tried for murder. Find me guilty, or don't… at least it would all be within _due process_ , which you lot care so much for."

The General smiled again, and waved away the Doctor's comment. "Oh, Doctor, come on. You must have figured it out by now: the murder charge is just a ruse."

"Ah, here we go! A bit of honesty!" the Doctor said, quite loudly, his arms spread out wide.

"Not that it's a bogus charge, mind you – you did unlawfully and knowingly kill an Epidromeas, using the functions of your TARDIS. But we are well aware that the Epidromeas' actions and plans constituted an acute menace, and that your actions may have been necessary in defence of yourself and innocents."

"So, you brought me here just to get my help with this… looping thing."

"Yes."

"And you intend to hold me until I help you."

"Yes."

The Doctor sighed. "I still think this is complete crap, and that you're an absolutely _spectacular_ moron if you think a Time Lord wouldn't already be aware of the sort of phenomenon you're talking about, especially on Earth, where, you must know, I spend a great deal of my time, and have a lot invested. But whatever – I'll play. The only _looping_ thing I can think of off the top of my head, having to do especially with World War II, is Captain Jack Harkness."

"I see."

"He has been present throughout the war, twice. As far as I know, he spent both stints knocking about Britain, probably bouncing between Cardiff and London. It is possible, given his temperament and disposition, that he has been less-than-vigilant about crossing his own timeline."

"Interesting."

"Actually, to be honest, I wouldn't put it totally past him to have a one-night-stand with himself, but that's neither here nor there. I can tell by the look on your face that this isn't the sort of info you're looking for."

"The anomaly is engaging at a much more _macro_ level than that," said the General. "In order to heal the breach and smooth out the localised loops, we are attempting to use an advanced-velocity time ring with a high level of consistency."

The Doctor looked at him deadpan, with disbelief. "You want to _smooth out_ the pockets of time by basically unleashing a time tornado?"

"Its like trying to achieve a creamy batter by using the high setting on an electric mixer."

"Yeah, but you're not baking a cake, General, you're mucking about with time," The Doctor sighed with tedium. "Seriously, General, what are you lot up to? What is all this?"

The General ignored the question, and ploughed ahead. "Where we are struggling is in _this_ time, Doctor, in the time that humans have designated as 2008, C.E. We are finding that it is difficult to keep the juggernaut up and running, if you will, because there is always this hiccup when we reach the end of the time ring in 2008. We want to restart the smoothing process in 1938, but find that we can't… not without a break in consistency _,_ which we consider to be a key component."

"Did you say, 1938?" the Doctor asked, having a revelation.

"And that's where you come in," the Kir continued. "Who better to achieve a smooth transition between 2008 and seventy years prior than a Time Lord?"

"Indeed," the Time Lord responded, with a bit of a growl. "Are you, perhaps, also hoping to use a low-level dimensional transition field? In layman's terms, a small portal between this dimension and another? Small, like, maybe the size of a slab of city concrete?"

The General squinted at him in a way that let the Doctor know that the answer was _yes._ "That's classified."

"And is this temporal ring, perchance, going to be focused on London? Perhaps on Earl's Court Road, at the corner of Bolton Gardens?"

"Also classified."

"You've got actual _time_ stuffed in a _time capsule_ , haven't you?"

The General did not answer.

* * *

 **Okay, stuff is weaving together now.**

 **Now, play nice, and leave a review! It would make me smile! :-)**


	16. Chapter 16

**Two chapters ago, Donna came home to find Martha, and the TARDIS, gone from the back garden! We know that Martha went in there to sleep in the Doctor's bed in his absence, so...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

SIXTEEN

Martha Jones must have been engaged in some manner of slumber, because when her phone rang, it startled her out of a dream about ice cream and Winnie the Pooh.

The number was mostly scrambled, with a few characters that she didn't recognise coming up on the screen. In the past, this had meant that the Doctor was calling her from the TARDIS console. Given that she was currently _inside_ the TARDIS, and the Doctor was imprisoned, she had no idea what it meant now.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Jones?" a voice said.

"Yes."

"Dr. Martha Jones?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"This is Agent Pym, from the Galactic Council. We met, about twenty-one Earth hours ago."

"You're early," she said. She and Donna had learned from the Council's outgoing recording that it would be at least another thirty-six hours before they would hear anything from them.

"Pardon?"

She sat up. "You're contacting me early, at least according to what your switchboard message said, when I tried to get in touch."

"Oh," the agent said, and Martha detected just a hint of _oh, bollocks_ in his tone. "Well, occasionally, the process moves a bit faster."

"Is the Doctor all right?" she asked.

"He's fine," Pym assured her. "We're not in the business of harming people. Unless their companion tries to interfere with official business."

"What's the charge?"

"Murder."

"Murder?" she shrieked. "Are you bloody kidding me?"

"According to our sources, Dr. Jones, you were present on the island when the Epidromeas was lured into an invisible forcefield and killed."

"Mm. Are you going to charge me too?"

"No. I just wanted to… no. Apologies, Dr. Jones," said Pym. He seemed to clear his throat and regroup just then. "I contacted you to let you know that you may visit him."

"I… what?"

Pym sighed. She wasn't sure if it was because he was reluctant to give a prisoner his due, or if it was because Martha was being, apparently, so obtuse. "According to the Galactic Constitution, Paragraph 7, and in accordance with the Rights of the Living Treaty as signed by the Shadow Proclamation, prisoners must be allowed access to at least one personal acquaintance or next-of-kin. We are limiting it to one. It's a question of due process, and anti-cruelty measures."

"Really?" Martha asked, sceptically.

"Yes, really," Pym answered, with no expression. Then, he cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Paragraph 7 also provides the prisoner a conjugal visit, if eligible."

"A conjugal visit," she mused. "That's quite generous of you. You know, we're not, like, married or anything."

"What does that mean?" Pym asked. "Never mind. You were witnessed in intimate quarters with the prisoner, and he has identified you as his companion. You are being categorised as eligible for conjugal allowances. Can you just accept it, please, so I can stop explaining it?"

"Fine. Can I speak to him now?"

"He's indisposed at the moment."

"Of course he is," she grumbled at him.

Pym sighed again. "He's in a meeting, okay? Don't be so suspicious."

"A meeting with whom?"

"Why would I tell you that?""

"Fine," Martha snapped. "Just tell me how I can talk to him."

"Just after his processing, the Doctor gave me contact information and instructions to impart to you, so that you can meet an emissary on the Sandring Metlos Space Station, and our transport will bring you the rest of the way. Standard procedure."

"Why can't you just come and collect me?"

"Okay, so we'll land a Galactic cruiser in your back garden, in the middle of London, shall we?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Look, the Doctor gave instructions. Aren't you _companion_ types supposed to follow them?"

She paused. "If I can't speak to the Doctor now, how do I know you're on the up-and-up? How do I know you won't put me in a space capsule and imprison me, as well? Or drop me on a deserted planet or something? Or use this whole song-and-dance as a ruse to steal the TARDIS?"

Flatly, Pym said, "The Doctor thought you might ask that. He insisted upon making specially-programmed security protocols a part of the instructions. You will stay tethered to the TARDIS, wherever you are."

"How?"

"Well, the first instruction is to find his sonic screwdriver."

Martha contemplated very briefly. The fact that Agent Pym didn't seem to have been fully aware of the Galactic Council's procedure regarding contacting prisoners' next of kin, this had not escaped her. It made her suspicious. The direct quoting of articles from the Galactic Constitution and the Shadow Treaty, or whatever it was, this all seemed a bit stilted and contrived to her, as well. She had a terrible feeling that the Doctor had not been "arrested," but rather, captured. By whom, of course, there was no way for her to know. And, of course, if _she_ had worked that out, _he_ had as well. Long since.

Should she go forward with this very risky business?

If only she could talk to him!

If she could, though, he would probably tell her to stay put, stay safe.

Which made this whole thing even _more_ suspicious… the Doctor had sent instructions for her to participate in a dodgy plan, be transported across space by unknown quantities, just for a "conjugal" visit?

Well, she reckoned she could wait for something to happen… like what, she had no idea. For the Doctor to get in touch on his own? For the Galactic Council to call? For news of his death or permanent incarceration?

Or, she could _do_ something, even if what she was doing was meant to trap her. She could move the TARDIS, throw herself into this thing, use her wits, and work toward ultimately saving the Doctor.

"Sonic screwdriver," she said. "Gotcha. Hang on, would you?"

"Yeah. Hurry."

"Don't you dare cut me off!"

"I'm not going to cut you off! Just go find the damn thing, I'm a busy man!"

She jumped out of bed, put her shorts back on, and then ran down the TARDIS' corridors, through the console room, across her garden, through the mudroom and foyer, up the stairs and into the bedroom. She found the sonic in the breast pocket of the pinstriped jacket hanging on the back of a desk chair.

"Got the sonic. Now what?"

She returned to the console room, and Agent Pym then read off a set of directions that the Doctor had written down. Martha followed them scrupulously, moving toggles and dials, setting coordinates with painstaking care. She did this, knowing that any imprecision could result in a misfire, that would land her in the wrong galaxy, or even the wrong millennium.

"Okay, almost done," said Pym. Then he explained to her how to programme the sonic screwdriver to stay tied to the TARDIS, and to alert the vessel if it became separated from Martha's energy signature. This would launch a security protocol that would mean an intergalactic hunt-down of Martha Jones, including intervention from the Shadow Proclamation, the British government, and four different mercenary organisations that owed the Doctor a favour. For this, she had to insert the sonic into a port on the console, as well as both of her hands.

"So, I will remind you, Dr. Jones: don't lose the screwdriver," Pym advised her, sensibly. "It could cause an intergalactic incident."

The very last direction was to use the sonic to activate the "hard shell" around the TARDIS, once she was on the space station. As this was the very tool he had used in the "murder" of which he was being accused, she wondered if it was perhaps a bit risky to activate it right in front of these agents. But she reckoned, as usual, that the Doctor knew what he was doing. (In this case, she could see, he was trying to protect the TARDIS. Perhaps he'd thought that this imperative outweighed the need for discretion. And, she thought it was more than possible that the "murder" was a cover for something, that these guys weren't really interested in the Epidromeas situation at all.)

"Everything should be set now. In theory, all you have to do is deactivate the handbrake, which he says you know how to do anyway, and the TARDIS will materialise on the space station shortly after that. The emissary is already there."

She cut off the call, and ran back to her old bedroom. She remembered having left a pair of purple flip-flops here when she'd decided to vacate this life, in favour of her sanity… what seemed like a lifetime ago. She'd come down to the TARDIS to retire tonight without any shoes on, so she was hoping the flip-flops were there, and she wouldn't have to go back into her flat.

She found that the room smelled of Donna's perfume, and the place had been rearranged, and filled with Donna's personal effects. Martha found her flip-flops in the closet, on the end of a row of Donna's shoes. This made her smile. Of course, Donna, wouldn't have just chucked them.

And then, Martha thought of Donna. She really should be included in all of this madness, but Agent Pym had been clear that the Doctor was allowed only _one_ visitor, and anyway, she didn't want to wait until Donna came home from her date. She reminded herself, Donna's return could be any time between now, and tomorrow afternoon. The emissary was there, on the space station, _now._ Who knew how long he would wait?

She decided to keep her phone on her. If she wasn't back by the time Donna came home, she figured Donna would ring – they both had universal roaming. At that point, she could bring Donna in… or try stealthily to enlist her help, if the situation called for it.

She was going to need a place to store the phone and the sonic, where they couldn't be lost, and couldn't be easily taken. She looked at Donna's clothing and knew without trying anything on, her jeans and trousers (things with pockets) would be far too long in the legs, and a bit too wide in the waist. So she ran back to the Doctor's bedroom and climbed back into her bra. She was able to stow the sonic inside the garment underneath her left breast, and the phone against the right… while the Doctor's burgundy tee-shirt hung loosely off of her, leaving no-one the wiser.

Before she left the room, though, she looked inside the wardrobe, still standing open. She found several clean, pressed suits, shirts and ties. She chose a combination that she liked (blue suit, always the blue suit), and laid them out on the bed, with the tie slung around the neck of the hanger. Next, she extracted a pair of red Converse, still in the box, and searched the vast array of drawers in the room for a pair of clean socks and underpants, which she found, and stuffed into the box.

She carried all of these things to the console room, took a deep breath, and disabled the handbrake.

* * *

The emissary in an environmental suit was indeed waiting on the Sandring Metlos Space Station for Martha when she exited the TARDIS. She could see now that this particular station was like a carpark, that the coordinates given to her by the Doctor had landed the TARDIS in a particular, numbered spot. All around her, there myriad different space crafts of different shapes and sizes. Seeing that leaving one's transport here seemed to be a perfectly normal thing, she relaxed a bit. About _one_ aspect of this whole operation.

"Dr. Jones, I presume."

"Yes."

"I'm Agent Cru. I'll be conducting you the rest of the way, to the Inner Sanctum of the Galactic Council."

"Okay," she said. "Just a moment."

She had stepped out of the TARDIS with a blue pinstriped suit, a shirt and a tie slung over her arm, and a shoebox in her right hand.

"Would you mind holding this for a moment?" she asked the agent, handing him the box. He took it without a word.

Gingerly, she turned away from him and extracted the sonic screwdriver from its hiding place. As instructed, she adjusted its settings, aimed it at the blue box, and activated the hard shell. In theory, this should keep the vessel safe from… well, everything.

She then offered to take the shoebox back, but Agent Cru volunteered to carry everything that was in her arms onto his cruiser, parked nearby. This bit of courtesy surprised her, considering she had half-expected to be told that she could not bring the clothing with her at all.

She let him carry the garments, followed him, and boarded the vessel. He stowed the Doctor's clothing in a compartment behind them, pressurised the cabin, and the thing took off. Her stomach lurched. She had been in space plenty of times before, but never had she voluntarily got into a ship with someone who was not the Doctor, and left the TARDIS behind. At least not when there wasn't something chasing her.

She knew that she'd had her reasons for jumping into this plan, and she stood by them. But one concession she'd made to herself was that she would use her wits. Just now, she wasn't sure that she had any.

It was, surprisingly, about fifteen minutes to their destination, and Agent Cru helped her out of the cruiser, including holding the Doctor's clothing for her again.

She was led through the complex, asked a few questions about her identity, planet of origin, reason for visiting, etc. and was brought to a metal door. Cru heaved the door open and conducted her inside, handing her the Doctor's clothes at last.

Being in this room, Martha thought, must be what it's like being inside a toaster.

The outer walls and ceiling seemed to be made of something like chrome. In the centre of the ceiling, there was a raised window – a skylight, perhaps, though Martha wasn't sure if the thing ever let in any light. Was it simply night-time here, or did the window always reveal only black sky, and stars? The window was covered with a metal grid which Martha thought befitting a prison setting.

That the same metal grid went from floor to ceiling, all the way round the room, and stood about twelve inches away from all four walls. The overall effect was more than a bit severe.

But, the absolute most incongruous bit was that, with all of this roughness, there was a light-brown rug in the centre of the room, and on it, there was a large, perfectly-made bed. It had a cream-coloured bedspread, brown pillows, and a light-coloured wooden headboard.

"This is the conjugal room," Cru said.

"I see that."

"You may place the clothing on the bed."

"Thanks," she said, though she didn't know why. She laid the suit, shirt, tie and shoebox over the left side of the bed – the Doctor's side.

"According to Paragraph 7 of the Galactic Constitution, in conjunction with the Rights of the Living Treaty, the prisoner is allowed periodic conjugal visits, without surveillance," Agent Cru said to her, quite loudly.

"Without surveillance?"

"That is correct. Surveilling such a meeting would be considered invasive, and registers on Orlingus' Cruelty Scale at level 1."

"Whoa. So, there are no cameras or recording equipment in this room?" she asked, mostly because she found this assertion very, very difficult to believe.

"None whatsoever. But, all of the grids that you see around you are electrified. The voltage has been calibrated for the Time Lord's constitution, and will render him unconscious at the slightest touch. You are human, and you are smaller, so I don't know what it would do to _you_ , if you touched it, but… maybe don't find out, eh?"

"I won't plan on it."

"The Doctor will be brought to you momentarily. After that, the door behind me will be deadlock sealed, and a gridded gate will fall in front of it. Once that happens, you and the Doctor will have nineteen galactic minutes before someone returns to collect him. At that point, the visit is concluded, and you will both submit to a bodily search for clandestine information or items. Understood?"

"How do you search for clandestine information?"

"That is confidential, I'm sorry," he said. Then, "Make yourself comfortable."

With that, he turned, and walked through the door. It slammed hard, startling Martha, and she could hear electronic locks and safeguards falling into place. Next, the same process was repeated with the electrified gate, falling in front of the door.

She stood in the centre of the room, eyes and mouth open wide.

For a while, she just sat on the bed and waited, trying to be patient and calm... but sensible.

But eventually, panic began to set in, as the silence became oppressive, and her own heart began to thump hard in her chest. She began to pace. She walked in concentric circles around the bed, thinking of her situation.

She extracted her mobile phone from her bra, and looked at the time. It was about half-past nine when she'd retired to the TARDIS to sleep. The display now showed that three hours had passed. Which meant, she'd been waiting here for about an hour. She'd been told that the Doctor would be brought to her momentarily… she was starting to lose hope.

And, the longer she thought about it, the more she became convinced of two things: 1) there was _no way_ she _wasn't_ being watched and recorded here, and 2) no-one had any intention of letting her see the Doctor.

She was startled yet again by the ringing of her phone, right there in her hand.

"Donna!" she cried out, answering the call.

"Martha! Where the hell are you? Where's the TARDIS?"

"Donna, I'm in a cage," Martha reported, her voice breaking. "I've walked straight into a trap!"

* * *

 **Poor Martha! But, don't despair... things aren't as bad as all that.**

 **Leave me your thoughts in a review. It would make my day!**


	17. Chapter 17

**I'm pretty sure that this chapter isn't going to go the way most of you think... but I think you'll like it anyway. Maybe read it during your lunch break, rather than at your desk? Just a thought.**

 **When we last saw Martha, she had been told by Agent Pym that she was allowed to visit the Doctor. So, she had used protocols set up by the Doctor for her own security, and that of the TARDIS, to rendezvous with an agent, who brought her to the Inner Sanctum where the Doctor is being held. But when she arrived, they shut her away pretty tightly, and she realized she'd walked into a trap. Not that she was terribly surprised.**

 **Okay, enjoy!**

* * *

SEVENTEEN

"As soon as the door closes behind you, you'll have twenty-eight galactic minutes, Doctor," said Agent Pym, leading the Doctor to the door between the hallway and the room designated for conjugal visitation.

"Does General Kir know this is happening?" asked the Doctor, already more or less knowing the answer.

"No, he has no idea Dr. Jones is in the complex," Pym told him. "He wants your help – he'll withhold anything, barring food and water, to get it. Including, of course, visitation rights."

"And you wouldn't want that."

"I would not," Pym confessed.

The Doctor turned and faced Pym. "What about due process? Doesn't General Kir care about that? The fact that I'm _allowed_ to see my partner, under certain provisos, and any withholding of that right would be considered a level-three cruelty on the Orlingus Scale? He obviously rose to the position of General within the Galactic Council, for _some_ reason. I'd have pegged him for a rule-follower."

Pym smiled a bit. "Okay. We can drop the charade, can't we?"

The Doctor returned the smile, feeling a bit daft, trying to match wits in his underwear. "Indeed. How refreshing. So, that begs the question, why _are_ you letting me see her?"

"Well, she's already here, isn't she? Hate to see her come all this way, just to send her home again without a cuddle."

"So, it's all for her sake?"

"Look, Doctor, I'm a nice guy, okay? I don't really understand why you're here, and it's not my place to ask. I'm basically a grunt worker."

"A grunt worker for whom?"

Agent Pym lowered his voice to a whisper. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. All I know is, I've been told to make it look and feel like official Galactic Council business, so you won't realise you're being held against your will by an organisation that has no right to do so… though, I'm sure you worked that out well before you even saw the Inner Sanctum."

"I had my suspicions."

"In order to do my job with some semblance of competence, I've done my homework on the Galactic Constitution, and their policies on prisoner-handling. I discovered their laws concerning due process, partnering with the Rights of the Living Treaty and all that. All of it happens to make sense to me. You _should_ be allowed to see your next of kin, or in this case, your Companion, or your partner or…" Pym looked at the Doctor wearily and sighed. "Can I just say, I don't think you should have to be completely cut off from the woman you love?"

"Thank you, I don't think so either."

"And, more importantly, Doctor, she shouldn't have to be cut off from you. She's done nothing wrong, as far as anyone is concerned, so it's only fair. Need more reason than that?"

"No," the Doctor answered. He patted Pym on the shoulder and said, "Good man. Thank you."

There was a pause, while Agent Pym looked at the floor. "Doctor, tell me. Am I helping them do something bad? The organisation I work for?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Well, Agent Pym, unfortunately, the word _bad_ is very subjective. Short answer: I don't know. Why?"

"It's just… I know I'm supposed to have contempt for certain species in the universe, and if they've brought you here to help them blow up Shinfang 6, I should be chuffed about it. Or at least indifferent."

"But you're not."

"No. Life is life. Rights of the Living and all that. I'm a harmony man. And based on what I know of you, you are the same. You wouldn't help them do something horrid… not if you could help it."

"Based on _what you know of me_?"

"I know who you are, Doctor," Pym told him. "Followed your work for years. In fact, I asked to be put on your case. Didn't know I'd have to be the arresting agent – sorry about that. And sorry about what I did to Dr. Jones. The point is, I know what kinds of things you know how to do, and if they've gone to the trouble to get _you_ , they've got something big cooking."

"I reckon you're right."

"And if they're trying to convince you that you're in the custody of the Galactic Council, it means that they might not be able to convince you to help, if you knew the truth about who they are and what they're up to, and that _terrifies_ me."

"Excellent. It _should_ terrify you. I'll try and suss it out, okay?"

Pym stepped up very close to the Doctor and said, "Let me know if I can help."

"You can release me back into the wild," the Doctor whispered back.

Pym stared at the floor. "I can't."

"I know."

"It would mean giving up my job. Maybe even my life."

"I get it," the Doctor whispered. "But it's good to know I have an ally. Speaking of which, where are we on the nudity-prevention situation?"

"Still working on it," Pym told him, with a shrug. "Sorry."

"Oh, well, can't have everything," the Doctor sighed, almost without moving his lips.

Agent Pym's demeanour changed then. "Now, as I said, from the moment the door is shut, you and Dr. Jones have twenty-eight galactic minutes, according to the Galactic Constitution's due process."

"Understood," the Doctor said, turning toward the door.

"You also will not be surveilled in any way. No cameras, no recording."

"Really?"

"Private moments with next of kin – it's what due process dictates. I know that you know it's not official Council business, but I set it up myself as though it were."

"Okay. Thank you."

"And, erm, I'm supposed to tell you that the grids on the walls have been electrified and calibrated to your constitution, but honestly, I didn't have time to get that done, and I wouldn't know how to anyway. Just don't try to escape, because if you do, it will be my neck."

The Doctor nodded. "I'll see you in twenty-eight minutes. You have my word."

The door opened and he took quick stock of the room as it shut behind him. The walls were metal, and as Pym had said, there was a grid lining all of the walls. He reached out and touched it, and was not electrocuted.

He then noticed the bed in the middle of the room, and spied Martha curled up, asleep on "her" side, and one of his blue suits laid out on "his" side.

"Thank you," he breathed, relieved that whatever happened next, at least he'd get to be fully clothed, and feel like himself. He smiled at the fact that she'd chosen blue, and not brown – she had always preferred him in blue.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, just to watch her sleep for a few moments. Upon examining her, he saw that she'd been crying – her eyes were a bit puffy and pink, and her cheeks had evidence of tear-streaks. She was lying on her side with her mobile phone in her hand, which he took from her, and saw that her last call had been an hour ago, from Donna. He reckoned Donna must've panicked upon realising the TARDIS was gone.

She still had a pair of purple flip-flops on her feet, and had put on a pair of exercise shorts. But the most heartbreaking piece of it all was the tee-shirt she was wearing. It was the one he'd peeled off himself and thrown onto the floor the night before. He knew without checking that the shirt would still carry the scent of him, his after-shave, and probably myriad other aromas that Martha would be tuned into, of which he himself was unaware.

He shivered a bit, with the memory of the last time he'd worn that shirt, and the "silence" game they had played, so as not to disturb Mrs. Finley, and how unexpectedly intense it had proven. At this point, he couldn't believe that so little time had passed since he'd last seen or touched her. It had been about twenty-four hours – felt like ages.

He lay down on his side next to her, very close, facing her, then stroked her arm. "Martha?"

"Mm?"

"Martha, wake up, it's me."

"Mm?"

He smiled and leaned forward, pulled back the collar of the tee-shirt, and planted two or three compelling kisses across her clavicle and shoulder.

This opened her eyes quite suddenly, and she threw her arms around him, and laughed/wept as she squeezed him round the neck.

The hug, of course, became a kiss, which was, from its first moment, hungry and clinging. Her relief was palpable. She let herself roll onto her back, and he rolled with her, landing on top.

The last twenty-four hours came rushing back. Shock, fear, loneliness, so acute Martha had wondered if she'd drown in them. Donna had been great, and the Monday morning meeting had been a good distraction, but nothing could really dull the blow of having the Doctor taken from her in the middle of the night. And then, they'd shut her into this room, and she'd been sure that she was now their prisoner and she'd never see the Doctor again without a miracle…

And now, she felt nothing other than desperation and fever. All she wanted to do was make sure he wasn't a dream. She ran her hands through his hair, over his unshaven cheeks, down his arms, over his back and bum. He plunged his tongue into her mouth and she felt it fully, sucked at it, groaned… and needed more. Just more.

He had missed her since he'd been here, yes, and he'd worried for her safety, her sanity, and longed to talk to her and reassure her… but his fervour had been nothing like hers, apparently. Until now, that is. Now, he found her avidity intoxicating, and as usual, contagious. Before they'd even said hello, he found himself pressing down on her, wrapped around her, tongues dancing and searching, with heavy breath and lightning-fast, unambiguous, unrestrained arousal.

He had barely realised how hard he'd become in this one scorching minute. His cock was screaming at him now, and he moved to adjust the only garment he'd been wearing since he arrived, pushing it down, freeing himself.

He never stopped kissing her, never stopped nipping at her neck and chin, and never stopped groaning in her ear… but he was vaguely aware of her wriggling beneath him, evidently trying to extricate herself from what she was wearing.

All it took was one leg, one leg free of her shorts. She spread her thighs and curled them around him, and grasped his bum urgently. He was inside her in less than two seconds, thrusting hard, as though they hadn't seen each other in years.

He clawed at the bedspread in the intensity, and grasped tighter and tighter with each advance his body made into hers.

She panted, and gave high-pitched moans of his name, and words like, "Yes," and "Don't stop." But basically, no thought nor language was coherent. They lunged and slid and collided, over and over again, each clash of their bodies setting off fireworks behind their eyes, and all over. It was like they were scared _not_ to seize each other, and the moment, and the pleasure and the pain, scared that it would slip away, or be taken from them in the night.

Indeed, this fumbling, bursting, impatient fuck… it was not like them. They were much more thoughtful on the whole, and their lovemaking was passionate and calculated, much more driven toward the long-term, both of the night, and of their lives. They'd had plenty of hard, fast, instant-gratification type moments, but nothing like this, and never without _any_ sort of eye-contact or at least _hello._

But tonight they were on the edge – they weren't sure there _would_ be any more long-term, frankly. Even the Doctor, who knew the game a bit better at this stage, wasn't entirely certain in this moment that he'd have Martha tomorrow or next week or next month…

They'd been forced apart, thrown back together, with no idea of what the future might hold.

So _of course_ they were incendiary, and ready to burst, more quickly than they'd ever been. He pressed his forehead to hers, and demanded, "Look at me."

She did, and they locked eyes for the last thirty seconds of their tryst. They saw worry and agony in each other's gazes, but also that familiar burning need for release.

Two minutes from the moment when she opened her eyes (or perhaps less), he thrust into her so hard that it hurt, buried his mouth in the pillow beside her head, and held this position while spasmed inside of her, letting go of a good deal of his anxiety…

… and giving her a good, squirming, blurry jolt of an orgasm, as well. She dug her fingernails into the small of his back, and tried to press him down further into her as bolts went through her body, and a loud groan escaped her lips.

He pulled back, and thrust in again as everything about them continued to pulse and propel them into and around each other. He did not stop moving with her until they'd both ceased to tremor on the inside. The come-down was like vibrating liquid, like the throb of the ebb tide… and was exquisite.

When his breathing and heart-rate slowed a bit, he pushed himself back up on his elbows, smiled down at her, and said, "So… hi."

"Hi," she said, her voice trembling.

"Have you missed me?"

She burst out laughing then, a reaction partially to his question, but mostly in relief, and in reaction to the buzzing in her body. He chuckled in turn, and rolled over on his back.

"Sorry," she said. "I thought I might never see you again. But then I wake up and there you are."

"Sorry? Why sorry?"

"I dunno. Just… never mind. I'm happy to see you."

"Right back at you, Dr. Jones."

"I guess we gave the surveillance team a right eyeful."

"Pretty sure there's no surveillance in here. I think we're safe."

"That's what they said when I came in, but I didn't believe them."

"Agent Pym set it up, or so he says," the Doctor told her. "And I trust him. I think. I mean, he's been nothing but reasonable, thus far, and he seems to have an actual conscience. Do you have the sonic on you?"

"Yeah, hang on," she said, sitting up. She reached into her bra and extracted it.

The Doctor winced. "Ooh! That can't have felt good, when I was… well…"

"It's okay, I didn't even notice it," she told him truthfully, then handed him the device.

He held the sonic screwdriver aloft and adjusted it a couple of times, listening to it buzz. Then he clicked it off, and said, "Yep, nothing watching, listening or otherwise keeping tabs on us in here. Nothing organic nor electronic."

"Wow. Amazing. They told the truth. And let us alone. Well, I guess that's why they have the electrified fence."

"Nah, it's not electrified."

"How do you know?"

"I touched it. Nothing happened."

"You touched it and it didn't put out your lights?"

"That's correct." He rolled the 'r' duo whimsically.

"So, we've got the sonic, and there's no electrified anything to stop us escaping, except… they said the door was deadlock sealed."

"Could be."

"But if it's not, then we can sneak out of here!"

He sucked in air through his teeth. "I can't, I promised."

"You promised?"

"If I escape, it'll fall on Agent Pym, and I said I wouldn't let that happen. Besides, I need to stick round here and find out whatever else I can about that time capsule."

"The _time capsule_?"

"Yeah, didn't I mention?"

"No! I thought you were here on a murder charge!"

"Oh, that was just a ruse to get me here, and make me think I was being arrested, instead of kidnapped."

"Kidnapped! I knew it!"

"You did?"

"Well, I suspected. Thought at least it might be a possibility. Became utterly convinced when they locked me in this room and I thought I'd become their prisoner too."

"You're not a prisoner. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your view, in about twenty-six galactic minutes, most likely, you'll be escorted out of here and taken home."

"How long is that?"

"About fifty-five minutes. They gave us an hour."

"Well, let's use our time wisely! Tell me what you've learned! I mean, these people, they're the ones who set up the time capsule? The one near my flat? The one about which the three of us have been starving for tidbits?"

"Looks like. General Kir all but admitted it. Mostly by being a terrible liar."

"So, does this mean we don't have to send Donna into the belly of the beast on Monday?"

"No, because the story Kir gave me about what they're up to… it's complete rubbish. Totally made-up."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Kir gave me some song and dance about a time loop happening of its own accord, and causing localised pockets of temporal bumpiness."

"Temporal bumpiness? That doesn't sound very dignified. And, it seems like if that were true, you'd already know about it."

"Doesn't it just?" he said. "He said that the solution they've come up with is to run the time loop over and over again over a period of seventy years, between 1938 and 2008, so as to smooth out the lumps, the way a mixer smooths a batter."

"That sounds insane."

"It does, but it could work. It might be a rough ride, but it's not a completely terrible plan. _If_ there were such a thing happening, that is… which there isn't. He says, what they are having trouble with is getting things going again, at the other end. Creating the loop with consistency and velocity, restarting it in 1938."

"How do they even know how _any_ of this works? Even knowing enough to make up a story for you…"

"Stolen technology," he shrugged. "You know that Buford Greene has something that can _sense_ me.

"Hey, you used his real name!"

"If he's working for these folks, whoever they are, it probably means _they_ have much more fierce and manipulative Time-Lordy-type stuff that they're using. Maybe illegally."

"I wonder how Greene fits into all this," Martha mused.

"Don't know yet. But that's one reason why we need Donna."

"Yeah, we do, don't we?" Martha said, darkly.

"Yes. What's with the voice?"

"She's out with Colin tonight."

"Well, that's great! Why are you so prickly about it?"

"It _is_ great. Sort of," she said. "It's just… what if she'd rather be with him than us?"

He laid down on his back and stared at the ceiling. "Then, we let her go."

"You could do that?"

"Not easily, but… if it's what she wants…"

Martha sighed heavily, and joined him in staring contemplatively at the ceiling.

After several minutes, Martha asked, "So, what does _the time of answering_ mean? If these are the people who set up the time capsule with that inscription…"

"I don't know what it means," he admitted. "Not yet, anyway. All I know is that for some reason, they're trying to create a high-consistency time loop, and they're not telling me the truth about why. And I'm going to need to know why. I'm a Time Lord. I need to know why someone would have buried a time capsule, and put _time_ in it. I'd say that's way too on-the-nose, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "But isn't it a _good_ thing that they can't do it without you?"

"I suppose. For now. I don't know what they'll do if I refuse to help, though."

She turned on her side again. "Ah, what an adventure."

"Life with me."

She smiled. "We might die."

"We might not."

"But just in case we do…" she lilted, leaning forward for a kiss.

He got the hint. "Then I guess we'd better make the most of whatever time we have."

They used the rest of their "conjugal" time quite well, taking advantage of the lack of surveillance, and the lack of Mrs. Finley.

* * *

 **Kind of an indulgent chapter, but I say, we needed it! Big feels, along with a revelation or two...**

 **Leave me a review and I'll love you forever! ;-)**


	18. Chapter 18

**This chapter is a little schizophrenic. We're wrapping up Saturday night with Colin/Donna/Martha, and leading into Donna's important Monday-morning meeting! Oooh!**

* * *

EIGHTEEN

Sometime around four a.m., Colin Brownhill heard a noise he had never heard before.

He had been sitting on his cousin's sofa, flipping through the television channels (marveling at how much total crap was on TV in the wee hours of the morning), when an otherworldly grinding sound cut across the space. Donna, still in her stunning purple dress, sat beside him, her legs curled under her, with her head on one of the throw pillows, where she had begun "resting her eyes," two hours before.

After realising that Martha was gone, she had panicked. She had relaxed somewhat when she'd rung, and Martha had answered, but had become all wound-up again, when Martha had reported that she'd been taken prisoner. Donna had spent the ensuing two hours trying to get in contact with someone called Captain Jack Harkness, though she had no idea how to do so, and according to the internet, the man had died during World War II… if he ever existed at all.

Colin hadn't known what to make of any of it; it all sounded daft, like they were having him on, for a laugh. Donna had, just tonight, come forth with a huge confessional, concerning her life with Martha and "the Doctor," and he had been just trying wrap his mind round all that, when the revelation that Martha had been kidnapped (or rather, had gone willingly… sort of… hoping she could get out of it if something went wrong? What the hell had she been thinking?) had come… and he was reluctant to believe any of it. Aliens? Temporal activity? Kidnapping? His cousin being held… and did they really expect him to believe she was currently on _a different planet?_ Jesus.

But Donna's distress, which disturbed him a lot more than he might have guessed, seemed genuine. So he'd stayed with her, promising not to leave her alone, until Martha or the Doctor came back.

The noise gave him pause, for sure, but then it grew louder and louder. He nudged Donna's thigh.

"Oi," he said. "Donna, wake up."

She sat up straight at the sound of his voice.

"I wasn't asleep," she insisted, though she'd had her eyes shut, and had been breathing deeply for nearly two hours.

"Do you hear that?"

Donna focused. Then her eyes lit up. "It's the TARDIS!"

With that, she was running, stumbling toward the back door, cackling loudly, happily, and calling Martha's name.

"What?" he called after her, as he followed her through the back of the flat, and out the door to the garden.

To his total astonishment, he looked to his left, and saw an old-fashioned blue police box sitting there, that definitely hadn't been there before. It was lit from the inside, and seemed to be humming, just a bit, almost as though it were alive.

Donna ran around front of it, and disappeared inside.

"Donna! What the hell? What are you…" he stopped, realising that Donna had no interest in his questions nor entreaties at the moment, and he sounded a bit mad.

But he followed her round to the front, and examined the thing. She had called it the TARDIS – he didn't know what that meant, though he assumed that _this_ was the thing she was planning to show him, hours ago, when she was trying to convince him that she, Martha and the Doctor were not complete nutters. At the time, it wasn't here, which sent her into a panic. And now it _was_ here.

How did it get here?

And what was she doing in there?

"Donna?" he said, reaching forward to open the door.

When he did, his jaw dropped.

* * *

Colin was an intelligent, curious man, who also happened to be an architect. His initial reaction to the TARDIS had been exactly like that of both Martha and Donna – first, denial, then inspection of the exterior, just to make sure, then the inevitable declaration: "It's bigger on the inside!" But after that, he had asked about six thousand questions that neither woman could answer, mostly to do with the structure of the thing.

"How does it stay, you know, stable?" he asked, looking about. "I mean the columns here, they aren't in the right places to keep a dome like this one aloft. I could show you the math…"

"Colin, honestly, the Doctor is going to have to answer all these questions," Martha said. "I don't know how it works. I can tell you that the TARDIS' interior is basically in another dimension, and the door acts as a portal of some sort. It's all tethered to this console here, underneath which is the 'heart' of the TARDIS – I think this is what holds it all together. And not just the TARDIS itself, the pieces of itself, but it holds together parts of reality, the time vortex, and probably a chunk of the Doctor's psyche. Literally or figuratively… probably a combination of both."

"How do you know all that?" Donna asked her, half annoyed, half impressed.

"I listen," Martha shrugged.

Martha filled in Donna on the night's events, including everything the Doctor had told her he'd learned from General Kir. "And, it sounds really weird, but apparently, the guy immediately in charge of the Doctor's… _care and feeding…_ the Doctor says he's a good bloke, who doesn't want to be involved in anything shady. He says he trusts him."

"He trusts him?"

"Yeah… like, he's gone out of his way to make the Doctor's stay more comfortable, including not wanting to violate cruelty parameters, like not letting prisoners see and communicate with their next of kin. Or their Companion."

"That's weird. I mean, it's brilliant. But weird," Donna remarked.

Donna and Colin filled in Martha on their date, including all the stuff she'd told him about the Doctor, and what the three of them _really_ did with their time.

After that, Colin left, and the two women both spent most of Sunday asleep. Martha, once again, took up residence in the Doctor's bed in the TARDIS, and Donna curled up on the sofa in Martha's living room where she had been staying for almost a week.

"I have fresh sheets in the linen closet – they're bamboo. I'll throw them on my bed for you," Martha had offered. "Don't sleep on that sofa again!"

"It's comfy," Donna had shrugged.

"Seriously? It's second-hand!"

"So?"'

"I always wake up with a backache when I sleep there."

"Guess I must not be as old as you," Donna had said, with a wink.

Donna, however, was quite aware that she needed to be awake and alert, and on-time, for her Monday- morning rendezvous with the ladies' toilet and a stethoscope.

So, she retired to the sofa at six a.m., and slept only until noon. Martha, however, was unconscious until at least tea time. Even then, Donna had to wake her.

Martha's mobile phone rang at around 4 p.m.

"Hiya, Dr. Jones. Fancy coming home for dinner?"

"Dinner? What time is it?" Martha moaned, then looked round the bedroom for a clock. "Blimey, the man's a Time Lord, you'd think there'd be at least _one_ clock in the room!"

"It's four o'clock on Sunday afternoon," Donna said. "I went out and got all the ingredients to make my famous sausage and vegetable lasagna. I'll do the work, if you'll meet me in the kitchen in two hours, so I don't eat the whole thing."

Martha smiled. "You've got it."

She went back into her own flat, took a leisurely shower, dressed slowly, tidied up a bit (including laundering the Doctor's discarded clothes) then joined Donna in the kitchen, offering to put the salad together.

As it turned out, Donna made an excellent lasagna, and the two of them shared it with salad, wine, a few laughs, followed by a store-bought cheesecake. Martha noted Donna's conviviality, something she hadn't quite seen since she and the Doctor had arrived back in London. She reckoned that Colin had a lot to do with that, especially now he was becoming privy (admittedly, startlingly quickly) to the weirdness of their lives.

Martha, though, once again found herself unpleasantly alone overnight, and dearly regretted having slept so long, following her visit with the Doctor. She now knew that he had been captured, not arrested, though _he_ did not seem very worried about his circumstances. She wondered if he'd been covering his trepidation for her sake, and still had a million other questions.

She talked Donna into sleeping upstairs, so that she could flip channels from the sofa all night.

* * *

All weekend, Martha had been ducking calls from work; when she had decided to stay in Mallorca for three extra weeks with the Doctor, she had applied for a short sabbatical, and it had been granted. So, at the moment, she was not _expected_ to be working, but she reckoned that Julia's flu was just now clearing up, and she might be playing it safe, not wanting to compromise her immune system straight away, or that of her patients. Martha hoped that someone else had filled in Julia's Saturday and Sunday shifts, and that A&E hadn't been left in the lurch.

When her phone rang at six a.m. Monday morning, she had been dozing on the sofa for a couple of hours, and she reckoned, Donna was the one with an "assignment" today… why shouldn't she do a shift at the hospital? It was better than sitting around here, wondering what to do next.

"Yeah, I'll come in," she told the head nurse. "Should be noted, however, that I'm running on very little sleep, so I probably should be confined to non-emergency triage."

"I think we can make adjustments for that. I'll let Dr. Michaels know, he'll need to do the jump-and-run stuff. He's amenable, usually."

And so, she dressed and went to work. When she left, Donna was pacing the kitchen, dressed in a grey suit and high heels, looking as though she belonged in an office building. She had stuffed a pad of paper and a pen, some duct tape, a bottle of non-abrasive surface cleaner, 5-6 folded paper towels into her shoulder bag, along with the souped-up stethoscope. Her phone and other personal effects were the last things she added; she planned to leave the house in a taxi at half-past seven.

"You'll be fine," Martha told her.

"I know," Donna said, uneasily, giving her the thumbs-up. "Supertemp."

"That's you!"

"By the way, do you mind if I borrow your laptop, bring it along today? Maybe if I get cornered or something, I can use it as camouflage."

"That's fine – yeah, take it with you. Call me later?"

"Definitely."

* * *

Donna snuck into the building sometime just before eight o'clock. The place wasn't crowded, but there were enough people around that she was glad she'd brought a pair of sunglasses and worn fairly non-descript business attire. Though, like the Doctor, her most distinctive feature was her hair, which was hanging loose for all the world to see. She wished now that she'd had the presence of mind to tie it back and wear a sun-shading scarf or something, but too late now.

She found her way easily to the ladies' and silently apologised to all the women in the building, by scrawling out on a sheet of paper, "Closed for Maintenance," and then duct taping it to the door. She then placed three pieces of duct tape over where the door met the doorjamb, so as to discourage entry.

Within two minutes of arrival, she heard the first woman curse outside the door, then try to open it, then complain to a colleague, "The bloody loo is bloody closed. What're we supposed to do now?"

"Use the gents', for God's sake," she said under her breath, as she pressed the stethoscope's auscultator against the wall, roughly where Colin had suggested.

Immediately, she heard a voice through the earpieces, that said, "How many cups of tea and coffee are we going to need?"

Another voice said, "Dunno yet, why don't we worry about that after the meeting starts?"

"Can't do that, you twit," Donna said. "What is she supposed to do, take orders like a waitress?"

The first voice then piped up with, "Mr. Greene is not going to be best pleased with me if I walk in and start taking drink orders, as he is trying to begin a meeting."

"See? Never underestimate the logistical sense of a secretary," Donna commented, while the second voice said something like _never mind then, do what you want._

"Celia," said the first voice. "Can you help me fill up all three kettles, so we can have the hot water going when the meeting starts?"

Fifteen seconds later, Donna heard someone try the door. "Oh, bollocks, the ladies' is shut," someone said, she recognised as the first voice. "Guess we'll have to use the gents'. I'll just prop the door open with my shoe so we don't traumatize any of the boys."

Donna moved to a toilet cubicle, and pressed the auscultator now against the wall, directly behind. She could clearly hear water running, but she could also hear the two women talking about keeping the first floor clear during the meeting, and feeling uncomfortable that Mr. Greene, if he was so intent on keeping the meeting confidential, didn't hire more security.

 _Good to know – no extra security. Only the sleepy bloke at the front door, and two secretarial types in charge of keeping the area clear. Cool – I can take them, if I have to._

The two ladies chatted about getting a drink after work, then seemed to head back upstairs. Donna then reapplied the auscultator to the wall over the sink, and duct taped it into place. She now only had to wait.

* * *

"Thank you all for coming today," a female voice said, just a couple minutes after nine a.m. "I am Janine Skruggs, for those of you who don't know me. I am CEO of Burch and Bradley. In short, I'm your boss."

Donna was sitting upon the vanity counter between sinks in the ladies' toilet, with the stethoscope earpieces in, pen at paper, making note of the woman's name.

Skruggs continued. "However, if you don't recognise me, it's because I normally work in the central branch near Marsh Wall. _This_ branch, as you know, has been put in charge of expanding the horizons of Burch and Bradley, out of the milieu of mergers and acquisitions, and into… more interesting endeavours. Which is a lovely segue-way into our principle objective today. For that, I must turn the meeting over to the head of PR for our firm, Mr. Buford S. Greene."

"Thank you, Mrs. Skruggs," a posh male voice said. "I am, as the lady said, Buford S. Greene, and yes, I am the head of PR for Burch and Bradley. I am, however, working at this branch on – we'll use her words – _more interesting things_. This is partly because our newest _interesting_ project is in need of PR, and partly because I have some characteristics, some knowledge, some… _attributes_ , shall we say, that make me uniquely equipped to head up the Earl's Court Time Capsule experiment."

Donna made a note-to-self in margins: _what attributes?_

"Before we go on, I must insist upon your total discretion in these matters," Greene went on. "Not just concerning what is said in this meeting today, but about the nature of the entire project. This is delicate, potentially dangerous, and among other things, we don't need Environmental Protection on our arses, do we?"

There was tittering amongst those attending the meeting.

"But more importantly, our project could very well be misunderstood. I've already received indicators from certain employees, some of whom are in this room, suggesting that they don't believe in this project. Fair enough – it does sound crazy, doesn't it? But that's why we're here today: to clarify it all, including objectives, expectations, and well, frankly, the consequences if things don't go well."

Donna could hear the rustling of papers, and a single set of footsteps.

"To that end," Greene continued. "I am asking Mr. Abling to hand out non-disclosure statements for you to sign."

From there, Greene read the several-paragraph document aloud, to affirm that everyone in the room understood what they were signing, and the repercussions of too much tongue-wagging. Donna, of course, treated this document with the utmost importance, and wrote down every word that she could.

Then, she heard about a dozen pens scraping along the table, followed by more papers being shuffled, and she assumed, collected.

"All right," said Greene. "Now that's done, let me turn your attention to the screen behind me. It says, as you can see, _An Oxbow In Time._ That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we are going to create."

Greene seemed to pause for effect then, but a second, less-posh voice, rang out, "So, what, like a loop in time? Like an oxbow lake, only… in time?"

"Yes, precisely," said Greene."

"That sounds barmy. What the hell does that even mean?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked that. And that question will be answered all in good time. Right now, let's start from the beginning. Imagine, if you will, two titanic conglomerates, working together to police their world. It's as if Disney decided to pair up with Microsoft, to right the wrongs of, say, North Korea."

This was met with a few muttered comments, and guffaws.

"Only, they're not policing the world, but rather, the universe. They are the Heimat Squad of the Kyriarch System, and the Gallifreyan High Council. Also known as the Time Lords."

"Oh, shit," Donna muttered, hearing this.

* * *

 **Oh dear!**

 **And hey, if you're out there reading this, drop me a line and let me know your thoughts! Haven't been hearing from many people lately! Thank you for reading!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Okay, finally some proper exposition! I realize that this story is moving quite slowly... I guess I can't really account for that, except to say, it got away from me! I started incorporating a lot of stuff, the biggest of which is Colin, so it's taking a lot of time and a lot of chapters to tell my story. Hope you're still enjoying it. :-)**

 **So... the Time Lords are involved! What more is Donna going to find out about this time capsule business, from her perch in the ladies' loo?**

* * *

NINETEEN

"Imagine, if you will," Buford Greene had said to his captive audience, "Two titanic conglomerates, working together to police their world. It's as if Disney decided to pair up with Microsoft, to right the wrongs of, say, North Korea."

This was met with a few muttered comments, and guffaws.

"Only, they're not policing the world, but rather, the universe. They are the Heimat Squad of the Kyriarch System, and the Gallifreyan High Council. Also known as the Time Lords."

"Oh, shit," Donna muttered, hearing this.

"And instead of North Korea, they are attempting to right the wrongs of the Earth," he continued. "The human race."

This declaration was met with more than a few muttered comments, angry questions, curses, and no response from Greene.

"To that end, my friends," he said, when the noise died down. "Burch and Bradley are in the employ of the Heimat Squad – no longer a strictly mergers and acquisitions firm, but now also engaged in special projects such as this. Creating an oxbow in time, so as to contain the avarice, wrath, and recklessness of the human race."

More uproar from the room.

"As you already know, the firm has been involved in a time capsule project, that has received some public attention. The time capsule was buried on the corner of Earl's Court Road and Bolton Gardens, and is scheduled to be opened in two days' time. The assumption has been, of course, that there would be some artefacts from 1938 to be gawked at, oohed-and-aahed over, to give us a slice of life back then," Greene said. After a brief pause, he continued, "But that is not at all what the capsule contains. Its lessons about the last seventy years of life on this planet shall be imparted in a completely different way.

"In fact, the capsule itself exists on a different plane of reality, you might say, slightly out-of-sync with the time stream we are on," he went on. "It has to be. Because the capsule contains _time itself_."

"What _the fuck_ are you on about?" a harsh male voice said. "With all due respect, sir."

"Well, of course, it's not _all of_ time itself," Greene corrected, with a little bit of a laugh. "But a slice of time. It contains the year 1938, captured in a bubble, if you will, waiting to be released, and to encompass the planet. This will reset our reality back seventy years, and time will march forward from there. Here in Britain, it's just after the abdication, and we will go very shortly into World War II. Then, we rediscover television, the swinging sixties, the "me" generation, the internet, mobile phones… then we'll start over again."

"So, if any of this were real, and I'm not sayin' it is," said the same rough voice that had questioned Greene previously. "That means, we never advance beyond this Wednesday?"

"That's right," Greene said, incongruously cheerfully. "The human race ends in about forty-eight hours. But it doesn't end, exactly… it just resets itself on a seventy-year loop. No one dies. They just sort of come to the end of their existence, and then the _potential_ for their existence becomes realised again."

"That's ridiculous."

"Perhaps that's the way it sounds," Greene conceded, a bit condescendingly. "And you are entitled to your opinion. But you are under contract, sir. As are all of you. There will be consequences, if you do not cooperate."

"What bloody consequences?" the rough voice asked, amidst a low roar of other voices. "If there's no life after Wednesday, what has any of us got to lose?"

"The next forty-eight hours made extremely unpleasant for you," Greene answered.

"Yeah well, I'm thirty-eight. Two days at the _end of my existence_ is a pittance. I'll take my chances."

"What makes you think that the large oxbow between 1938 and 2008 is the only time loop we are capable of creating, dear sir?"

A longish pause ensued, during which only people shifting in their chairs could be heard in the conference room, and the man with the rough voice seemed to be thinking things over. Forty-eight 'extremely unpleasant' hours… capable of creating time loops.

"So you're going to imprison any non-compliant employees in a two-day torture bubble that will last forever," the man said.

"Essentially," Greene told him. "You are a clever man. You see, folks, the two conglomerates that were involved in the initial idea to create the oxbow, they complemented each other perfectly. The Heimat Squad are the principal police squad for the Kyriarch System, which is in another part of the universe, but they make great strides in the area of artificial intelligence. The Time Lords of Gallifrey, they were able to wield and govern time itself. They agreed that Earth, post-World-War-II, was too dangerous to be allowed to exist unchecked. The Heimat Squad had the military precision, the man-power, the organisation to pull off a large-scale containment, and the Time Lords had the know-how, as far as manipulating _time_. On the scale of seventy years, or of two days – depending upon what is needed. Are we understanding each other?"

"As well as can be expected," the rough voice said.

Greene's voice returned to its boisterous meeting-running, PR-guy resonance. "The biggest hiccup in the project occurred when the planet Gallifrey was destroyed, and along with it, all of the Time Lords. All, that is, except for a single specimen. He has been brought into the fold, thanks to intelligence work on the part of Burch and Bradley. After all, our firm are the project's Earth-bound liaisons. Having this Time Lord in our midst is definitely something to celebrate."

Greene applauded, and there was mild, obedient applause briefly in the conference room, from the others.

"You arseholes," Donna whispered. "In your bloody _midst._ Whatever."

"You see, the time-block of 1938 was confined to the capsule by the Time Lords, _before_ the destruction of their planet. No-one else knows how they did it, nor how to do it again, once we approach the end of the time loop. That is to say, the next time we reach the end of the twentieth century. To maintain the oxbow, we need to know how to continue to contain and re-contain the year 1938, so that we can open the time capsule again, on the next cycle of 2008. And again on the next cycle, and the one after that. So, we've turned to a man who calls himself the Doctor."

"One question, sir," a woman's voice said. " _Why?_ I mean, why is humankind, or the Earth, or our society, or whatever, too dangerous to continue after Wednesday?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure," Buford S. Greene said.

"So, you're just following orders?" asked another voice.

"Why would you do that? Why would you sell yourself into a project like this? And us?"

"Why?"

"Why, sir?"

"Why, indeed?" Donna asked herself.

* * *

After the meeting was over, Donna removed all of the duct tape, and took it with her in a wad inside of her bag, not wanting to leave any trace that she was there. She used the surface cleaner that she had brought to remove the sticky residue that duct tape tends to leave. When she left, the place was precisely as she had found it.

She ducked out of the building as inconspicuously as she could, walked a few blocks, then phoned for a taxi. While she waited, Colin phoned.

"You all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. "Got an earful at the meeting today."

"You mean… using the hyped-up stethoscope to eavesdrop through the plumbing?"

She sighed. "Yes, Colin."

"What sort of earful?"

"Would you believe it if I told you about it?"

"I dunno," Colin said cautiously. "Is it about aliens and time travel?"

"Yes."

Now it was his turn to sigh. "I'm sorry, Donna. I'm still having trouble with all of that…"

"Okay," she said, shrugging. "Then let's talk about something else. Like dinner. Fancy it?"

"In general, yes," he said, brightly. "But if you mean with you, then I'm in, with both feet!"

They decided to have a casual dinner at a mock-1950s diner – it was not to be a heady, elaborate date. Just fun. With milkshakes.

"Come with us, Martha," Colin said, waiting in the foyer as Donna checked her lipstick. "They have these gorgeous, messy sandwiches…"

"No, I just got home – I still smell like antiseptic," Martha said. "You guys have a good time. I've got some leftover lasagna in the fridge, and a glass of wine calling my name."

She took a breath as they walked out the door, trying not to feel so acutely how the tables had turned.

She wandered immediately into the kitchen, and extracted a wine glass from the cabinet, and set it on the counter. She had not yet pulled the cork from the bottle when her mobile phone rang, from somewhere in the pile of stuff she'd dropped just inside the front door, upon arriving home.

She cursed as she dived into the pile and searched her bag for the phone, listening to it ring and ring, with each ring sounding more insistent.

Once she found it, she saw that it was a scrambled-up, probably extraterrestrial number.

"Agent Pym?" she asked, by way of greeting.

"No, actually," said the Doctor's voice. "But he's right here, if you'd like to speak to him."

Her heart soared. "Oh my God! It's you! Hi! How are you? I mean…" she fumbled. Then, she took a breath and forced herself to calm. "I mean, hello, Doctor, it's so lovely to hear your voice."

He laughed at her mock-seriousness, then said, "It's lovely to hear your voice as well."

Martha melted into laughter of her own. "Sorry… I got a bit carried away, I guess. So stupid. I just saw you yesterday…ish."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Forced separation… the uncertainty is exhausting, isn't it?"

"It is," she breathed. "It really bloody is."

"At least now I'm exhausted in my own clothes, thank you very much."

"You're welcome."

"So, how did Donna's meeting go?"

"She told me a little bit about it, but it's not clear yet…"

"What did she tell you?"

"Is it okay to… you know?"

The Doctor's voice went a bit muffled. "Pym, what's the protocol here? Can Dr. Jones whisper sweet nothings to me, or do you think she should refrain?"

Martha didn't hear anything for a few long moments, then she heard a familiar voice say, "Now, she can say whatever she likes."

"Thank you. I'll show you how to make it look like a malfunction," the Doctor said to him. His voice cleared, and to Martha, he said, "Pym just switched off the recording equipment. So, what do you know?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Donna found out that the Time Lords were involved at the inception of this little project. They started all of this, by stuffing the year 1938 into a capsule and apparently putting a portal to it under a sidewalk in London."

The Doctor's end of the line went silent for an uncomfortably long interval.

"Doctor? Are you still there? You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he said, as though she had just jostled him out of a stupor.

"Are you surprised?"

"Yes. But no," he replied.

"I'm sorry," she said, sensing his discomfort.

"Why are you sorry? No need to be sorry. Why are you always apologising for things?"

"It's just… you seem… distressed."

"They're _gone_ , Martha," he said. "The Time Lords are gone, but they're still fucking things up."

"Then, I guess it's a good thing you've been kidnapped and forced to get involved."

"Sometimes, I just…" he sighed. "You know, in the old days, I used to think sometimes that I would renounce my Time Lord status. They were basically peaceful, but dogmatic to a fault, which would, more often than not, in my view, make things worse. Or at the very least, didn't help anyone. I went rogue for that reason – I was tired of their hierarchical way of thinking. After they all died, I… I dunno, I felt guilty for ever having thought that way… even though I still pretty much believed it. But now, I'm all tied up in knots again, Martha, and ashamed to call myself one of them! Do you know, just the impact of releasing something like that upon the Earth, just _opening_ that portal, that capsule, could – and probably will – flatten the city?"

"It will?"

"In 1938… yeah, there's a really good chance, depending on what methods my so-called brethren used to bind the time block. They most likely used the Vortex Filo method. If I'm right, then a year may have been compressed into a theoretical space the size of a beer keg. It's going to be like a backdraft, as soon as that churning time gets a hint of the space it could occupy. It will turn inside out and essentially explode."

"Oh, God," she groaned.

"London can ill afford not to have solid buildings standing when the war breaks out."

"Wait, I thought the Time Lords were hands-off," she said. "Didn't you tell me that? That they believed in non-interference?"

"They must have had their reasons," he said, with a tired breath. "Some kind of crap logic, that would allow them to convince themselves that what they're doing _is_ non-interference."

"How would that work?" she wondered, sceptically.

"Don't know yet. What else did Donna find out?"

"Well, it wasn't just the Time Lords, it was some type of police organisation as well, and they are attempting to carry it forward even though Gallifrey is… you know."

"But why?" he asked. "Why _the hell_ would they do something like this? I mean, the High Council could be idiotic, and their reasoning could be shoddy, but… this just doesn't _feel_ like them. What were they thinking?"

"Something about our civilisation, or civilisations plural, between 1938 and 2008, being too dangerous to exist – or at least, to exist beyond 2008. So, they wanted to put us on an eternal seventy-year loop."

"What?" the Doctor spat. "That's rubbish! Although it might give some insight as to how the Time Lords could call this non-interference. In a time loop, in theory, nothing changes. Anyway, what does that mean, _too dangerous to exist_? What does the human race do between 1938 and today, that warrants a time-prison?"

"Donna didn't say."

"Well, is she there? Put her on!"

"She's with Colin."

"Have you got her notes?"

"Yeah, they're on the kitchen counter," she said. "But they're in shorthand."

"And you can't read them?"

"Of course not."

"Have you tried it?"

"No. I just know I can't read shorthand."

"Give it a go."

She grabbed Donna's notebook and looked at the writings she'd done today.

"I can read _some_ of it... like a few distorted words and letters are forming, but..."

"Get closer to the TARDIS."

Martha walked through the mudroom and headed for the back door, and to her astonishment, the words came into focus, in more or less plain English.

Standing just inside her flat, she breathed, "Whoa!"

"Yeah, translation circuits. Read it to me, beginning to end. Don't leave anything out."

* * *

 **Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who was kind enough to feed my needy side and leave a review last time. Please consider doing it again! It is truly a motivator to keep writing and posting, when I know someone is out there reading and enjoying!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Hello all!**

 **In the previous chapter, Donna learned that the "Heimat Squad" and the Time Lords began work a while back, creating "an oxbow in time" so as to contain the human race on a seventy-year cycle, between 1938 and 2008, forever. They'd deemed post-WWII humanity too dangerous to exist unchecked, and this was their solution. Although, as we know, the Time Lords are out of the picture now... except for one.**

 **But when that "one" finds out what they're actually planning, he's not pleased. And in this chapter, he's going to bring up a consequence of this operation that it seems no-one had considered, which makes the whole thing so much more dire!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

TWENTY

The room was large, but not so large that he couldn't tell who was standing on the other end of it.

A few hours after he'd got off the phone with Martha, the Doctor had been led here by an apologetic Agent Pym, and now he found himself standing opposite General Kir, and the ever-popular Buford S. Greene.

Truth be told, he was quite surprised to see the latter.

"Mr. Greene," the Doctor said, genially, walking forward. "Fancy seeing you here!"

"Good evening, Doctor," said Mr. Greene. "Been having a pleasant stay, in the Inner Sanctum?"

"Actually… it's not bad. The Galactic Council has been sticking to the letter of the law, so I'm guaranteed not _too much_ discomfort."

"Speaking of comfort," General Kir said, in his affable way, looking the Doctor, and his blue suit, up and down. "Nice duds. Where did they come from?"

"Oh, erm, I found them down in Lost Property," Agent Pym said, a bit too emphatically. Clearly, he was trying to keep General Kir from knowing anything about the Doctor's visit with Martha.

"Lost Property?" Kir asked. "Do we even have that?"

"Yes, sir," Pym answered.

"So… hello again, Doctor," Kir said with a slight bow, turning his attention to the Time Lord. "I guess you've already met Mr. Greene."

"Indeed," said the Doctor. "Though, I'd be very interested to know his real name."

General Kir laughed. "Very rich, _Doctor._ Mr. Greene was just telling me how interested he'd be to hear _your_ real name."

The Doctor smirked. "Trust me, I don't think he'd enjoy the conditions of having that bit of knowledge. Or, I dunno, maybe he would. Who am I to say?"

"Buford S. Greene _is_ my real name, Doctor," said the PR man. "It is the name my mother and father gave me."

"And when would that have been?" the Doctor wondered.

"16 January, 1896," said Greene. "In 1938, I turned 42 years old."

"And you were frozen there," the Doctor surmised.

"In a manner of speaking," the other man said lightly.

"Why?"

"Why, indeed?" Greene said to him, enigmatically.

"All in good time, gentlemen," General Kir cut in rather loudly. "First, we must take care of some business. Doctor, do you know what room you're in?"

The Doctor looked about, and realized very quickly what the room's function was, and what he'd been brought here to do.

The room was roundish, well-lit, and about the size of the TARDIS console room, except its control panels were along the walls. There was a long board of dials, displays, keypads and the like on his left, and in front of him, behind where Greene and Kir were standing, there were two closed doors. On the right, there was a completely different control panel, that seemed less intricate, but only on the outside. The Doctor knew that the _function_ of this panel was infinitely more complex, even if it didn't have as many moving parts.

At left, the controls were used for setting coordinates for time and space, and were similar to the ones on his TARDIS console that let him decide (sort of) where and when he was going. On the right, he recognised a veritable toolbox of manipulation devices, and he realized that this whole affair just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

From the evidence, he could guess what was behind the two doors. He had been trained at the Academy in a room very much like this one… only, frankly, more elaborate. And that room had been very much like this one because _his people_ had built them both.

"Yeah," he growled, still looking about. "I get it."

"So you understand why you're here," Kir assumed.

"I do. I'm here because this room contains a whole mess of switches and toggles and knobs and bobs that manipulate time. On that side," he said, gesturing left. "One can indicate the extent of the time-block that one might like to isolate, say, for a wild, totally-out-of-thin-air example, first January to thirty-first December, 1938. One can also calibrate the block to select only certain spaces in the universe, for instance, planet Earth. In addition, one can specify the length and breadth of a time loop, even its speed, level of stability, consistency, and duration.

"On the right, one can use the myriad different mechanisms, bunch of crazy intuitive tools to wield and wrangle the vortex, and employ any one of a dozen methods for isolating that block of time, in the way that one might choose. Which means…"

The Doctor moved forward to try and walk between Greene and Kir.

"What're you doing?" Kir asked, stopping him with one beefy arm.

"I'm opening these doors," the Doctor said, indicating what was behind the General.

"I'm sorry, you can't do that."

The Doctor laughed, and shouted, "Oh, come on, General!" but he backed off. "Given that you've got a coordinates panel and a manipulation panel, it only stands to reason that you'd have moderately tempered schisms behind these doors! Two gateways into the depths of the time vortex. Without that, all of this equipment is useless!"

The General and the PR man said nothing.

"And gentlemen, I'm here," the Doctor said, with a profound, breathy voice that commanded attention. "Because you have this incredible, universe-altering equipment, and no idea how to use any of it."

"That's true," Kir conceded.

"The Time Lords set 'em up, but then they went extinct before you lot had a chance to knock 'em down. Pity, that."

"Indeed," Kir now muttered.

"My guess is that you've been reading how-to manuals for the past seventy years, but with the Time Lords gone, and confined to a timelock, there's been no-one to make it go, no matter how well-versed you get in the theory of how it all works. The devices, for the most part, require a perspective over time and space that you simply don't possess."

"Right," Kir conceded, tedium colouring his voice. "Which is why we need your expertise, so that Mr. Greene can learn the ropes. He needs to know how to isolate 1938 again, so that we can run the time loop at high velocity, as many times as it takes."

"As many times as it takes to… beat out the wrinkles, yeah?" asked the Doctor, remembering the General's original, bogus story about why they needed his help.

"Exactly."

"And this is why Mr. Greene has been taken out of time, out of the ageing process," the Doctor realised. "Eternally to remain 42 years old. He'll retain memories forever, on each loop, so that if I teach it to him today, he'll remember it again in seventy years when it comes time to re-up. And he'll remember it again in one-hundred-forty years, and two-hundred-ten years, et cetera, et cetera."

"And I understand that it might take a staff, as it were, and I have them under contract, ready to go. I am the leader of this special project from that end, Doctor. I am the Eternity Agent," Buford S. Greene said proudly.

The Doctor smiled. "Mr. Greene, bravo. That is the most eloquent euphemism I've ever heard, for someone who has sold out their own planet in exchange for eternal life."

Greene fell silent, and his face fell as he realised that the Doctor's comment was not complimentary.

"Wanting to live forever, I get that," the Doctor said, hands in pockets, now pacing around a bit. "I mean, eternal life is misguided and fraught with turmoil and problems that can't be foreseen by anyone – well, except for a select few – but I understand the desire for it. Death is right scary, and uncertainty is even scarier, even for me."

"I'm glad you see it my way," Greene said to him with malice in his voice.

"What I don't get," said the Doctor, winding up to land a blow on the heads of his adversaries. "Is how any human being could agree to bring about the apocalypse of his own world, his own people, and still live with himself. Live with himself forever and ever, actually."

There was a stunning, still, weighty silence, and the Doctor knew he'd shocked the pants off them.

"Apocalypse?" Greene asked, trying to recover from the silence.

"Well, a figurative apocalypse in one sense. A slightly more literal one, in a different sense," the Doctor said, taking a deep breath, and letting it out through pursed lips. "And it's a weighty thing, Buford, my friend. I mean, I destroyed my planet and I go on, but I'm a Time Lord. We live with battle scars and shrapnel in our minds that bring humans to their knees, and rightly so – humans are overwhelmingly innately good and sensitive and full of hope. Time Lords, well, they're grave and morbid and stodgy, with a disturbingly huge capacity for longevity, and absorbing catastrophe, as it turns out. But you're human, Mr. Greene! This has _got_ to be unbearably heavy upon your soul. Unless… sorry, do you still have a soul?"

"Excuse me, Doctor, what are you on about? What's this _apocalypse?_ " asked the General, laughing, but with totally fake mirth.

"Well, it's not exactly the four horsemen, but basically the human race and planet Earth cease to exist sometime around midday on Wednesday, which is less than two days from now, because time will reset at 1938, and run its course over the next seventy years. And once it does, most of the planet will be, as they say, hell on Earth. And it will reset again and again _ad infinitum_."

"Not _ad infinitum_ , Doctor, just a mathematically-determined number of cycles," Kir began, a bit weakly. "I've already told you, there are time pockets, lumps and hiccups all over the continuum between…"

"Oh, don't give me that smoothing-out-the-time-pocket rubbish," the Doctor spat. His voice dropped an octave, and took on a mocking tone. "The cake batter is lumpy between World War II and today, so you need me to turn the electric mixer on, at its highest setting, to knead out the kinks."

"But that's what we're doing."

The Doctor shouted now. "Don't insult my intelligence! Blimey, _even you_ don't sound like you believe any of it! I'm a Time Lord, for God's sake. Have you got any idea what that means? Course not. If you did, you wouldn't be wasting my time with any of this!" He paused, paced, then stopped in front of Buford S. Greene, and shook his head in disgust. His voice became eerie and muted. "Thanks to you, humanity never advances beyond July of 2008. And you, Mr. Greene… well, you must have friends, family, _descendants_ who will be impacted. What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror each day?"

Greene swallowed hard. "I never married, never had children. There are no _descendants._ "

"Oh, well, as long as _you_ don't have any descendants, then why worry, eh? Fine, fine, carry on, then, Mr. Greene."

Greene said nothing.

There was a long pause in the room. Then, the General tried again. "Doctor, this is all really far-fetched. We don't know who's been feeding you this information, but…"

"That would be your Eternity Agent, there, General," the Doctor said. "He and his little firm."

"Excuse me?" Greene asked, offended.

"I've got eyes and ears everywhere," the Doctor whispered.

"I swept the building for surveillance!"

"Oh really? I thought you two didn't know what I was talking about, eh?" the Doctor pointed out. A pregnant pause, then, "You held a meeting and announced your plan to unleash an explosive, literal _time capsule_ in London, in order to punish the human race for its technical advances. And you may have swept for surveillance, but I'm still a lot cleverer than you."

He turned his attention back to the General. "So, you're the Heimat Squad, posing as the Galactic Council. Still policing the universe as you deem fit, I see. Because, according to our friend, Mr. Eternity, you think that somehow, humanity has too much technological power in the coming centuries, and you're trying to make them pay for it by never having it."

General Kir was probably good at a lot of things, but the Doctor guessed that bluffing at Poker would not have been one of them. The man's jaw dropped, and his eyes fixed on the Doctor, wide and shocked.

He recovered within a few seconds, but it was too late.

" _In septuaginta annis, et tempus advenit responsio,"_ the Doctor said. "'In seventy years, the time of answering arrives.' That's your objective, written right there on a slab on a sidewalk in London, isn't it? Seventy years from the beginning of the sequence, which is 1938, you'll force the humans to be accountable for what they are destined to create. You'll stick them in a time loop, lock them in a tumultuous century forever and ever, which will become a dark age of paranoia and hatred."

General Kir was eerily quiet for a few moments. He studied the Doctor, and seemed to weigh his options, then said, "Your people agreed with us."

"My people? They were quite often great blooming arseholes, in my view, and I rarely agreed with them."

The General sighed. "In their view, and ours, 2008 is when it starts to build to ridiculous proportions."

"What does?"

"Technology on Earth. Or at least, in the occidental regions, which seem to dominate the culture of the planet. They get hold of certain concepts, and it spins out of control. It becomes a snowball, and the advancements come faster and faster until…"

"Until what?" the Doctor wondered. "What do you think their endgame is, exactly, General? Do you even _know_ any humans? I mean, apart from Mr. Eternity?"

"It's not about their endgame. In fact, I might argue that it's about their _lack_ of an endgame. Or at least their lack of reflection on where they are headed with all of that power."

"Interesting," the Doctor muttered, looking the General over.

Kir continued, "The humans, as of 2008, have begun to carry computer devices in their pockets as a matter of expectation, before they are ready for the sociological changes it will bring, and it grows from there. The devices become 'smart,' and can answer any question. It begins with Siri, and grows, within ten years, into Alexa, the first of a commercial form of artificial intelligence that rather surprises people, even at the time."

"Humans get semi-moronic AI in their homes, and you want to imprison them forever?"

The General ignored the question. "Five years after that, the MRI sees a huge jump in detail and utility, thanks to computer science, and programmers begin exploring using the new, so-called 'Super-MRI' imaging of the human brain as a blue print for artificial intelligence."

"Countless other civilisations have done the same sort of thing, General Kir," the Doctor protested.

"Not with the speed of the humans, relative to intelligence, and therefore not with quite such a low capacity for understanding the impact it will have," Kir retorted. "They do this before they even begin to colonise other planets, or work cooperatively with other intelligent civilisations! They have not thought about how the cultural ramifications will affect the universe. They only think of themselves."

"So, you stop them altogether? Rather than putting mechanisms in place, encouraging them to be more reflective?"

"The artificial intelligence boom in the twenty-first century sets into motion the events of the Great Cyborg Haulocaust of 2245," Kir said. "And this, as you know, turns out to be one of the most profound social injustices of the known universe."

"Now, that's a bit of a stretch!" the Doctor declared. "You're just saying that because the Kyriarch System makes a nuisance of itself, and takes the largest hit."

"Fear of the unknown breeds within humans, even as they reach out into the universe and colonise Mars, then Haapfang (which they rename), and onto space stations and other galaxies, and whatnot, until pure-bred humans are seen as the only valid human…"

"Only amongst some!"

"And cyborg hybrids become abominations that represent the tainting, the bastardisation of the human race. And so, an attempted genocide ensues…"

"An attack perpetrated by one faction that will come from one planet."

"One faction carrying human mores, human nature, human fear. And their efforts spread – you know this, Doctor! Any _intelligent_ species would see to it that this type of philistine is eradicated before advancing with something that's going to challenge said philistines' worldview."

"Well, I wholeheartedly disagree with you there," the Doctor said. He began pacing in a circle, speaking with gusto and passion. "I mean, if you wait for everyone to shed their qualms and get on-board, nothing will ever happen. That's why I love humans! They take that step forward, even when maybe they shouldn't! Even when it might not be safe! Just to see what else can be done, what _good_ can be done, or how much further _up_ they can climb. Frankly, it's the best thing about them!"

"Nonsense."

"General, do you know what the cleverest non-Time-Lord I've ever met said to me once? We were trapped, and I told her we should investigate, and I warned her that we might die. Her reply, without even blinking, was, 'We might not.' And d'you know what? She saved my life that day, and that of a thousand other people. And not just that day, either! In the two years following, you wouldn't _believe_ what she accomplished, with that _maybe this won't be horrible_ spirit! She was _human,_ and she took step after step forward, quite literally, that brought a despot to his knees. And, she even used technology to do it!

"Yes, taking that step forward often leads to misfortune down the line. But it's nothing compared to what _never_ taking that step can lead to."

The General studied the Doctor. "Are you actually suggesting that the humans' recklessness is their greatest asset?"

"Not their _greatest_ asset, perhaps, but it's what gets them through sometimes," the Doctor answered. "I know them well. I love them. So… well, maybe I'm not exactly objective."

" _Maybe_ , Doctor?"

"All right, do you want objective?" asked the Doctor. "Here's objective. Over and above all of that other stuff I just said, think about this: the destruction of Bowie Base One on Mars in 2049 is a fixed point. It _needs_ to happen, if the fabric of space-time is to remain intact all over the universe. And General, without the humans making advances as quickly as they do in the early twenty-first century, the Bowie Base can't exist, nor be destroyed. Come to that, if humanity ceases to exist as we know it in 2008, the Bowie Base can't even become a glimmer in someone's eye! Simple cause-to-effect.

"Now I think of it," the Doctor went on. "What were the Time Lords thinking? I mean, did they really believe the universe could just _do without_ the influence of humanity, spreading throughout the cosmos? Even if a fixed point gets undercut? That seems mad. Although… they had practically no respect for human intelligence…"

"On that, we agreed," General Kir said, darkly.

"The Heimat Squad and the High Council of Gallifrey do not get to decide that. You're messing about with the lives of seven billion people," the Doctor said, his voice now hard as nails. "Besides, do you know what the impact of releasing a capsule containing the year 1938 will do to the planet, physically? Here comes the other part of the apocalypse, the hell-on-Earth scenario. The pressure generated has the potential to _flatten_ the city of London. Do you know what will happen to the city, then, in 1940 when the Blitz begins? London will never, ever recover. It will be back to rubble, back to ash. The UK will collapse, without its Capitol! Do you know what happens then? A huge amount of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries changes direction, and those times become _torture_ to live in. Forget JFK, the Cold War, and 9/11. Those things will pale in comparison to what humanity will have to deal with if the Allies can't fight, and the Axis wins World War II. Is this what you want for them? A slow, slow burn that will the human spirit?"

The Doctor stole a glance at Greene. He detected a slight hint of panic on his face. None of this, of course, had occurred to him. He had lived through World War II, and the rest of the twentieth century, and had _some_ idea of the "apocalypse" the Doctor was discussing.

"They might be able to witness their own ingenuity come to fruition," said the General. "It might make for a felicitous, though confined, existence."

"Not if the Nazis take over Europe, General! And besides, what are they, bugs in a bloody jar?" the Doctor shouted. "They're not your playthings, do you hear me? You can't just _decide_ to confine a living, breathing, vibrant collection of civilizations to a time loop! And I would say the same thing to the Time Lords if they were here!"

"Oh, Doctor," the General sighed.

"That's right, Kir: I would stop them. And I will stop you. Unless you call this off."

"You can't stop it."

"I can. I am. I refuse to help."

"That's quite a shame, Doctor," the General said, terrifyingly calmly. "Quite a shame, indeed."

* * *

 **Okay, well... the General is pissed. What next?**

 **Whatever your thoughts, leave me a review. Honestly, they make my day! Thank you for reading. :-)**


	21. Chapter 21

**The Doctor has refused to help Kir and Greene with their seventy-year time-f**k of the Earth. Go figure. Things will get hairy because Kir obviously has some method of persuasion in store for the Doctor...**

 **But first, just a touch of domestic life once more. On Monday evening, after gathering info on the time capsule, Donna had invited Colin out to dinner again...**

 **No judging of Donna. She's a grown woman! ;-)**

* * *

TWENTY-ONE

Eight o'clock on Tuesday morning, Martha had already heard from Julia Swayles, who felt she was ready to return to work. She had rung to thank Martha for covering her shifts during her illness, and to ask if she could buy her friend dinner, as a thank-you. Martha insisted that it had been no trouble at all, and that Julia should go out to dinner with her fiancé instead, as a celebration.

She was still in her pyjamas, having toast and yoghurt at the breakfast bar, when she heard the key slide into the front lock, and Donna stumbled in.

Shamefully, Martha had rather forgotten to wonder what had become of her.

"Blimey, are you just now getting in?" Martha asked, as Donna shut the door behind her.

"Yes, ma'am," Donna chirped.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm great," Donna told her. "No hangover this time." And she walked into the kitchen, smiling to herself, and plugged in the teapot.

Martha watched her closely for a few moments as she too extracted a container of yoghurt from the fridge, and a spoon from a drawer. She could barely contain her smile. Martha resisted the word _glowing_ , but reckoned if ever she'd seen anyone glowing, it was Donna, right now.

"So…" Martha said, pointedly. "How was dinner?"

Donna laughed, then caught herself. "It was good, yeah… brilliant." She broke into a full smile, and blushed.

Martha smirked. "Okay. Erm… I have no idea what to say next."

Donna laughed again, and Martha reacted with a laugh as well. Then Donna said, "I'm sorry. I'm a bit giddy… mood-swing from the morning-after…"

"I'm very glad to hear it," Martha said. "Not that I need to actually _hear_ about it. Ever."

"I'm not normally like this, it's just… I really like him, Martha."

"I'd gathered that."

"And, if I'm honest… well, it _had_ been a while," Donna said, ripping the foil off the top of the yoghurt.

"I'd gathered that, too," Martha confessed. She took a pause, then, "Erm, Donna, I never judge people for stuff like this, and I totally support the prospect of you and my cousin becoming a thing. But you've only known each other for four days, and in that time, your attitude seems to have one a one-eighty. What happened to breaking your bad habit, and _taking things slow?_ "

"I know, I know... you're not wrong. But Martha, every bone in my body, every fibre of my being tells me: _this guy is different_. I've got voices in my head and outside my head (mostly yours) telling me, Colin is not one of the wankers I generally find, who will just stroke my ego, then use me for something. There has been nothing to disagree with those voices, Martha. No red flags, which, given the amount of time we've spent together so far, should have appeared by now. And last night…" Donna leaned across the counter, and looked contemplatively down at it through an 'A' shaped by her arms. "Last night, I saw a chance at a bit of actual happiness. So I grabbed it. With a totally clear head."

"Okay," Martha conceded.

"And now, in the light of day… it _still_ feels different. There's no shame, no wondering if I made a huge mistake. Everything about it feels new, and at my age, that's saying a hell of a lot."

"At your age?" Martha scoffed.

"I'm thirty-nine," Donna said. "That's like a million, in single-life years. Trust me – I know what I'm talking about."

"I trust you," Martha nodded. "I accept what you're saying."

"Annnnnd…. we still _are_ taking things slow," Donna told her, rather whimsically, her eyes drawn to the ceiling. "It's not like we're getting married next week. We won't move in, we won't meet each other's families – apart from you – we're not going on holiday together…"

"Just… you know. Be careful. Don't get hurt. Don't hurt him."

"I know. By the way, Colin's outside. He and the cab driver were at school together, and they started a chat, so I came inside. He'll be along in a few minutes."

"Oh. Okay. Doesn't he have to work?"

"He's taking the day off," Donna told her. "We weren't ready to be apart yet, so we decided to come here so I could change my clothes, and then… I dunno. Maybe a jaunt out to the country or something."

"Don't forget, the time capsule is scheduled to be opened tomorrow, and the Doctor says it could flatten the city. In 1938, that is."

"Oh!" Donna replied, with some surprise. "Wait, when did he say that?"

"He rang last night, and I read him your notes," Martha said. "He knows everything we know, now. And probably more, as he's quite good at connecting the dots."

"You can read shorthand?"

"The TARDIS translated for me."

"What did he have to say about all of it?"

"He was appalled," Martha said, matter-of-factly. "He's pissed off that he's locked up, and can't help."

"Okay, so this is happening tomorrow, and we're supposed to try to stop it?"

"I think so."

"Any word on what we should actually be _doing_?"

"No," Martha said. "He said he wanted to see what else happened on his end, with the Heimat Squad, pretending to be the Galactic Council. If he can get a read on what they're going to do next, then he'll tell us how to proceed."

"How is he phoning you?"

"The guard in charge of him… I don't really know the context of the whole thing, but it seems like they trust each other. Pym is his name, and he's been letting the Doctor see me, talk to me… with no surveillance. The Doctor says Pym's a bit iffy on what the Squad is up to – he doesn't know exactly, and he's afraid that he's helping them destroy the universe or something."

"Okay, so basically a guy with a conscience," Donna commented.

"Basically."

That was when they heard a commotion coming from outside the front door. Colin's voice could be heard rather clearly, shouting things like, "What the hell, mate? Stop right there! That's not… no way…" Other muffled voices could be heard, as well, grunting and struggling.

Suddenly, the door flew open again, and Colin stumbled through, nearly falling to the floor. He righted himself in a short moment, and came toward them. "Ladies, you need to get out of here. Now."

But instantly, there were two humanoids in environmental suits, entering the flat behind him.

"No, stay where you are, all three of you," said a voice. "Dr. Jones is coming with us."

"Over my dead body!" Colin cried out, trying to tackle one of the officers.

As his body made contact, there was a loud static sound, and within seconds, Colin's unconscious body hit the floor. Donna called out his name, and went to his side.

"Dr. Martha Jones," said the second humanoid. Martha knew immediately that the voice belonged to Agent Pym. "You're under arrest as an accessory to the murder of an Epidromeas."

"What? That rubbish again?" Donna shouted.

Pym ignored her, and continued to address only Martha. "Please submit to apprehension, or we'll have to take further measures."

His voice sounded almost pleading.

"You can't do this!" Donna shouted at them from the floor. "You can't just kidnap people from their homes! We know you're not the bloody Galactic Council!"

"Donna, shush," Martha urged. "They'll knock you out, too. Someone should stay conscious here."

They put invisible cuffs on her, and marched her out through the front door. Weirdly, none of the passers-by seemed to notice the disturbance. She called back to Donna not to worry, that they'd be in touch as soon as they could…

"What have you done to Colin?" Donna cried out the front door. "This just fucking figures! I _finally_ find a genuinely nice bloke, who isn't out for anything, and he gets knocked out the first morning! What is wrong with you people? What if he never wakes up?"

"He will," Pym said.

"What if he doesn't?" she shouted.

Pym said to his comrade, "Will you go check his vitals, just to be sure? It'll shut her up."

The other officer went back into the flat. Meanwhile, Pym whispered, "I'm sorry, Dr. Jones. I'm under orders."

"Of course you are," she said, venom in her voice.

"It's going to be okay," he said. "You're not in any immediate danger."

"Bloody fantastic."

"I understand why you're upset, but rest assured, I'll take care of you just the way I've taken care of the Doctor."

* * *

"Well, if it isn't Buford S. Greene," the Doctor said, setting his book down. He stood up and crossed to the bars, where the nearly immortal being stood, looking angry and inquisitive. "To what do I owe this honour?"

Greene frowned. "All that stuff you said… is any of it true?"

"All of it, yes. But which bit were you referring to? I said a lot of stuff. I always do. I'm kind of a talker," the Doctor confessed, shoving is hands in to his pockets.

"Will the twentieth century really be _that_ unbearable, if we go through with this thing?"

"You know it will," the Doctor said, rocking back on his heels. "And it'll be unbearable on a never-ending loop."

"Britain could rise above it, though, couldn't we?"

"Come on, Buford," the Doctor said, annoyed. "You lived through World War II. You remember how it felt, how hopeless it seemed at times. And if even _half_ the buildings in London get felled or damaged in 1938, how do you think the city will look and feel and function at the end of the Blitz?"

"Maybe there won't be a Blitz."

"Of course there will," the Doctor dismissed, annoyed at the man's obtuseness. "What, do you think Hitler will show compassion to the nation of Great Britain because its Capitol has already seen enough demolition?"

"No," Greene admitted, casting his eyes to the floor.

"No!" the Doctor all but shouted. "If anything, it'll spark a bigger, longer airstrike! He'll _know_ he has the means to take you lot down, and he'll pull out all the stops."

Greene sighed. "Then what happens?"

"You know what happens," the Doctor said, softly. "I can tell by the look on your face, you've thought it through."

"Britain has no working Capitol. The government is in disarray. The provinces suffer economically, because they rely on London for certain provisions, and so does the military. Forces can't be gathered, Britain falls to the Nazis," Greene recited, mechanically.

"The Americans are unsupported in France, and France is never able to get out from under the Nazis either," the Doctor added. "Without Britain and France as their totems, Europe goes down, city by city, country by country, until there are Swastikas lining every street and death camps in every province. Eventually, Japan comes from the west and Germany comes from the east, and the US spends all of the 1950 and 60's expending money, effort, resources and _lives_ resisting it. They basically never recover. The Western World is lost. The Earth, as you know it, _never exists again._ "

"Hm."

"Is that all you have to say? Hm? All of this needless destruction so that you can live a longer life?"

"No… well, isn't there a way out for Great Britain?"

"Like what?"

"Like, I dunno, alien intervention? Couldn't the Heimat Squad fend off the Nazis and help London recover?"

"Aliens conquer the Nazis, and use their mysterious alien-osity to rebuild the city of London? And you don't think _that_ will change history in _gargantuan_ ways?"

"Well…"

"Look, forget the war for a minute. Buford, even if history plays out the way you've seen it, you're still condemning the planet to a time prison, don't you understand that? In 2008, everything ends for the human race. _There is no tomorrow._ "

Greene began to pace back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. The Doctor recalled that when they'd first seen him, he and Martha and Donna had thought he looked like a caricature of a "fat cat" from a political cartoon. Right now, he did seem like a cat, caged, contemplating his next move.

"Well, even if I decided I didn't want to subject the Earth to all of that," Greene said. "I'm in it now. They'll never let me out, and I can't extricate myself from the deal I've made."

"I might be able to help you with that, if you tell me more about how it works," the Doctor said. "If you want out, I can get you out. But I need to understand a few things first."

"Like what?"

"What's keeping you alive?" the Doctor asked. "You truly do look like you've been frozen in time at age forty-two. I know you've been using a fair bit of stolen (or borrowed) Time Lord technology, and so I wondered for a while if you were also borrowing regenerative energy from us, but… no. I'd be able to sense it, even see it. There would be an aura, I think. I mean, you're human, your body wouldn't be able to absorb it. You'd probably just be walking around all the time in this gold cloud."

Buford studied the Doctor, and seemed to think about his words. Then, "It doesn't matter. You can't help me. I don't even know if I _want_ you to help me."

"I can, and you do," the Doctor insisted. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't scared to death. Or, scared unto eternity… since you aren't going to die."

"You can't help me."

"Yes, I can! If you don't think so, why did you come?"

To the Doctor's surprise, a watch on Greene's wrist beeped.

Greene looked about, up and down the halls of the empty cell block, to see if anyone was watching. "I don't know," he said, suddenly agitated. "But I have to go now."

"Where do you have to go in such a hurry?"

"Things to attend to…"

"Look, if you're worried about someone hearing you, I can get the surveillance turned off," the Doctor said. "What you say will be just between you and me."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Greene said. He began to sweat. "I have to get back."

"Back to where?"

"Back to work," he said. "I've been away for too long. My people will be needing some directives."

"Back to work? Where? You mean in London? That building with the glass conference room?"

"I have a job to do, I gave my word, and I'm going to do it. Come hell or high water. Got to get back, got to get back…"

Greene rushed down the hall and out of the vicinity with a nervousness that had seemed to have hit him all at once.

The Doctor waited a moment, and then called out to Agent Pym, to see if he was about. Within thirty seconds, the Agent appeared in front of the Doctor's bars.

"Would I be able to speak to Dr. Jones today?" asked the Doctor.

"It would be in accordance with your care plan," Pym said, a bit uneasily.

"Now?"

"I'm not sure I can provide that opportunity _now_ ," said Pym, with a stilted seriousness.

"Then when?"

"I'm afraid I cannot commit to a time."

"Pym, are you all right?" asked the Doctor. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Are you under some sort of duress?"

Pym stepped back from the bars, and said, "I'm sorry, Doctor."

"Can you at least get a message to her?"

"What message?"

"There's a good chance that the building, Greene's office building, is acting as some kind of talisman that's keeping him alive."

"I will attempt to convey the message."

"Pym, seriously. What the hell is going on?"

Pym looked him in the eye with all of the remorse and worry that he felt. He repeated, "I'm sorry, Doctor."

* * *

 **Okay mes amis! What's on your mind? You've fallen off the face of the Earth again... why not leave a review this time?**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Okay, folks, this chapter is fairly ugly.**

 **The Doctor won't do what they want... but they've just kidnapped Martha. S**t's about to get real. And kinda potentially disturbing, if I'm honest.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

TWENTY-TWO

The Doctor had had his evening meal, had done some reading and thinking, and had surrendered to sleep a few hours later. He had very little context as to how long he'd been slumbering when he was awakened by the voice of General Kir. Once the Doctor gained his bearings, he saw the big man in the green uniform, standing outside the cell, next to, and in front of, Agent Pym. The latter looked disgusted, as well as frightened of the former.

"Ordinarily I'd be loath to wake you in the middle of the night, Doctor," said the General. "Please excuse this rudeness. But, frankly, we're running out of time."

"You're trying to bring about an apocalypse on Earth, and you're apologising for waking me up?" the Doctor asked, yawning, and digging some sleep out of his eyes. "Good to know you've got your priorities straight."

"Your refusal to help us has been vexing to say the least, and has put us on a tight schedule."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to have inconvenienced you," the Doctor said flatly.

"The capsule is to be opened in approximately eight Earth hours, Doctor, and we still have no idea how to reboot the process, once the new time-line has begun," said Kir. "We have had every sort of expert in to look at that equipment, but the fact remains, no-one can run it except a Time Lord. And you're the only one we've got, so our options are thin, indeed."

"Very, very thin," the Doctor agreed, getting to his feet. "Considering there's only one of me, and I'm not going to do it."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Quite sure."

"I've come here to make one last attempt at asking you _reasonably_ to help us," Kir said.

"I already worked that out, thanks. But you should've just stayed home, General."

"Help us contain the human race, Doctor. Help us to save them, as well as everyone else, from their misguided, adolescent atrocities. Help us keep them where they belong."

"Not if you think _they belong_ trapped in a bubble. No deal."

"Not a bubble. A time loop of which they will be totally unconscious," Kir said. "It's not cruel."

"Well, on that we disagree, and anyway, you're _spectacularly_ missing the point. Several points, actually. But I've got no energy left to convince you, so I'm just going to decline once more."

"Measures will be taken, Doctor, to convince you, if you continue to refuse."

The Doctor sighed. "Yeah… I thought so."

"Not afraid of torture then?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that, but… I'll do what I have to. It's not worth sacrificing the Earth."

"What if it's not _you_ who's being tortured?"

He then heard Pym's breath hitch very subtly, so subtly that the General didn't seem to notice. The Doctor's eyes switched very quickly to Pym's, and then back to the General's. But in that split second, he read pain on the Agent's face. And shame, and sadness, and fear.

His stomach hit the floor all at once.

"Oh, General Kir," the Doctor groaned. "What have you done?"

The General didn't say anything. Although, as if on cue, a loud _clang_ sounded in the cavernous space, and the Doctor knew that the main door had been opened. It was a few seconds before he saw her, but when he did, he rushed forward to the bars in a panic.

"No… no, no, _no, no!_ General! You've gone to great lengths to make sure that your prisoners are seen-to in a fair and compassionate way! That's good! It means you have some scruples, some honour! What the hell are you doing?" the Doctor all but screamed.

"Actually all that _due process_ rubbish was Agent Pym's job," said Kir. "And he's done extremely well at it. I daresay he convinced you at first that we were the Galactic Council. My job is to work with Mr. Greene on how to contain time blocks again, so as to continue the time loop, and I don't give a damn about the Rights of the Living."

"Well that's pretty bloody clear!" the Doctor shouted.

By now, the two agents who were leading Martha Jones by the arms were standing in front of him with his Companion between them. Her hands were still bound by invisible cuffs behind her back, her mouth was sealed with strong tape. She looked at him pleadingly, apologetically, with panic, with resignation… heartbreaking fear.

"General, be reasonable," the Doctor begged. "You're a military man – a man of principle. You cannot do this!"

"I am a military man. Which means, I am a man of war," Kir told him. "In war, there is no principle."

"That is _not_ true!"

"I say it is. Nevertheless, I see no need for mindless brutality – keeping prisoners relatively comfortable generally costs little, so I haven't had a problem with it thus far. But here it is, Doctor: either you show us how the equipment works, or I shall be… shall we say _less than stringent_ about the parameters of due process and the cruelty scale of Orlingus, during Dr. Jones' stay here."

Seeing Martha held this way, being subjected to God Knew What on his account, bound, silenced, terrified… it sent him into panic. He was desperate to be by her side, touch her, set her free. His breath came quickly and heavily – he couldn't contain it.

"Come on, General! Your complaint is with me! Deal with _me_! Torture me until I crack! Just leave her alone!"

The General turned toward Martha and seemed to look her over. Then he asked, in a sickeningly lilting voice, "So you're Martha Jones, eh? The Doctor's… Companion. Best friend? Lover? Travelling partner? Co-conspirator?"

Martha stared back at him, her eyes registering disgust.

"Answer me!" he screamed at her, positioning his arm as though to backhand her.

"General…" the Doctor cut in.

Martha closed her eyes and turned her head, bracing for the blow. But when it did not come, she opened her eyes, found him still poised for violence. She nodded her head subtly, in concession, indicating that what he had said was true.

He circled around her, again, studying every inch of her. "Well, Doctor, this is the first time I've seen her," he said silkily. "And can I just say, well-done, sir." He gave the Doctor a twitch of the eyebrow.

The Doctor said nothing. He had no idea how to diffuse this, but he could see where it was going… and it made him want to vomit.

"Well done, indeed," the General said to him. "I'd be hard-pressed to find a better-formed human. Well, wouldn't it be a shame if _she_ fell in the wrong hands?"

"General Kir, _please_ don't make me choose between her, and her planet," the Doctor begged, hands gripping the bars, his voice ragged. "I'll do anything else… _anything_. That room, the one that the Time Lords built, it's a powerhouse – it's got almost infinite potential to manipulate time. You could have, or see, or do anything you want. Go anywhere, any-when. Live like a king, be a fly on the wall, have total glory in battle if you like – I'll show you how! Only, let her go, and leave the Earth alone!"

The Doctor was struggling to keep his voice even, it was clear to everyone. Martha groaned, and tears filled her eyes, as the Doctor pleaded.

Kir addressed Martha. "He's stubborn. And noble. That must be a huge turn-on. How you feeling now, love?"

Martha looked away from him, as fresh tears spilled over her cheeks.

"Don't talk to her, talk to me!" demanded the Doctor. " _I'm_ your prisoner! _I'm_ the one not doing what you want! Leave her out of this – she hasn't done anything!"

Now, Kir spoke to the agents holding Martha's arms. "Gentlemen, he's not acquiescing quickly enough for me. Which means that Dr. Jones isn't quite abject enough to convince him."

Martha gave a growl-cry as the agents behind her forced her to her knees.

The Doctor forced down his own righteous panic, and made himself _think._ If he didn't act with some kind of masterstroke in the next couple of minutes, something horrible would happen to Martha at the General's hands, and the Earth would become a wasteland. He tried to assess his options…

He stole a look at Agent Pym. His expression was one of shock and dread, leaving no question of his attitude on this whole state of affairs… but he was unmoving. The Doctor could see that he was not yet prepared to openly defy his superiors. In addition, if Pym lurched forward and resisted now, it would be three-to-one, and the man was too pragmatic for that. Pym's intervention had to be seen as a non-option. For now.

The General stood directly in front of Martha as she knelt, staring up at him with total contempt.

"That's better," the General whispered. He smiled disgustingly. "That's a good position for you, isn't it, Dr. Jones?"

Martha couldn't help but give a repulsed groan, and look away from him again.

"General, stop," the Doctor said. "Stop now, and you can still recover from this. It's not too late!"

Kir ignored him. He continued to taunt Martha. "Only… no, this won't do. It does no good to have you on your knees if…" He reached down and in one stroke, ripped the tape off Martha's face that had been binding her mouth. A loud tearing sound cut through the air, and Martha herself gave a cry of terrible pain. She nearly fell over, but was caught by the agents behind her. "There now – unobstructed. That's perfect. What say you, Doctor… don't you think she's just lovely this way?"

The Doctor and Martha locked eyes again, both pleading, both teary, both flat-out with fear and confusion.

When the Doctor did not answer, the General said, "Okay, men. Her new home is the brick pen in the cellar, and please let Colonel Rax know that we'll need a high-voltage branding kit, ASAP. Although, for the moment, why don't you deposit her in my office? She and I can get better acquainted, and I'll call you when I'm done with her."

Martha hissed an expletive, then coughed a few times then, forcing down a screaming panic.

The Doctor's own panic was welling up as well – he couldn't stop it.

 _Calm down, Doctor. This isn't going to get you out of this. You've been in worse situations before…_

 _But perhaps Martha has not. Even the Master never put her in quite this sort of predicament._

He panted, his knuckles went white around the bars, and his eyes jetted back and forth between Martha and the man who was now caressing her cheek suggestively, and smirking at her….

 _Resources, resources… what have I got? What will these guys do if I say no? What will they do if I say yes? What has Martha already been though?_

 _Resources, resources… I can sonic the bars open, but what are my chances of escaping with both of our lives? Practically nil._

The wheels were turning behind his eyes, Martha could see that. And from his body language, she could also see that he was on the verge of caving in.

She pulled herself upright, and said, "Doctor. No. Stop. I know what you're thinking. Just… don't. I'll be okay."

He looked at her with wide, terrified, resigned eyes. "No, you won't," he responded, his voice cracking, and barely audible.

New tears spilled over, out of her eyes, onto her very raw cheeks. "Even if I'm not… you can't do it. You _can't._ "

He groaned as if in pain, and buried his face against his forearms, and gripped the bars, if possible, even more tightly.

"Tick tock, Time Lord," said Kir. "Actually, to be honest, now I'm almost hoping you keep refusing for a while longer. I'm keen to spend a little quality time with Dr. Jones, if you please. I know Colonel Rax would be, as well, once the first session of branding is over."

The General waited another five seconds, then he snapped his fingers and pointed toward the main door, signaling to the agents that Martha should be taken away.

"No! Stop!" the Doctor cried out.

"Too late, Doctor," Kir said, dismissing his pleas, and turning on his heel, following the agents down the hall.

 _Resources, resources… what have I got?_

 _Almost nothing._

"I'll do it!"

"No!" Martha protested. "No you won't! Just let them take me!"

"I can't," he groaned, stepping back from the bars, in total despair. "General, I'll show you how to contain a time block, all right? I'll do it, just… oh, God, please don't…"

"Doctor, don't be stupid," Martha scolded. "Whatever they can do to me is _nothing_ compared to what's going to happen to my planet!"

"Martha… Martha…" he whispered desperately. "I can't let you… just… trust me. General, I'll do what you want. Tell me she'll be safe. Swear to it."

"She'll be safe," he said.

"Swear."

"I swear."

"She will not be hurt, not be made uncomfortable, and will not be _forced_ to do anything."

"Oh, Doctor…" Martha groaned.

 _It's me or the planet… and he's choosing me? He cannot be this daft! Not even love would push him this far!_

The General sighed, it seemed, with disgusting disappointment. "Fine, she won't be touched. Officer's word of honour."

"You'll forgive me if that doesn't mean much to me," the Doctor growled. "Now listen to me, Kir. I have ways of making you suffer, if anything bad happens to her. And I can fail-safe that mechanism so that the containment process gets reversed, and you lose your time loop. I can have you sucked into the vortex for all time, if I choose."

"Agent Pym, will you please escort Dr. Jones to a holding cell on the opposite wing? And, you know… do what you do," Kir said, gesturing to the Doctor's cell, and the conditions Pym had set up. "I will notify you if that directive is to change."

"Yes, sir," Pym said, stepping forward. He took Martha's arm gently, and began walking with her toward the main door.

"Doctor, someone will be round to collect you in a little while," said the General. "Get ready to earn your stripes as a Time Lord."

"Because destroying _one_ planet wasn't enough to do that," the Doctor muttered, under his breath.

* * *

"They have no idea you're not one of them, do they?" a very haggard-looking Martha Jones asked Agent Pym.

He pressed a button on his tool belt, and her invisible handcuffs came undone. "No," he said, rather quietly. "Given the display I just saw, I reckon things would not end well for me, if they ever realised it."

"You've never seen them do anything like that before? Threaten someone that way?"

"No," he admitted, opening the gate to a cell across the complex, very much like that of the Doctor. "I've only ever seen that sort of thing once, way back at my first policing job. A female inmate under a big, burly guard. He kept her in line with the constant threat of… _violation._ Since then, mercifully, I've only seen the possibility of blood and pain held over people's heads – not that I'm a huge fan of any of it. But I just met General Kir a few of weeks ago."

"I see. Sorry you had to see that."

"And I'm sorry I didn't try to help you, or the Doctor."

She blew air through pursed lips. "It was you against the General, plus two more agents. You'd have lost the fight, and they'd have known you're not like them. This way, we still have an ally."

Pym sighed with relief. "So glad you get that."

"Yeah, that General, he's a piece of work… best not piss him off until you're sure you can win."

"I agree. I never thought he was a fluffy bunny, but I had no idea he was… like _that._ "

"D'you reckon he's really like that, or was he just trying to scare the Doctor?" she asked, stepping inside.

"I don't know," Pym told her. "Either way, though, I like to think he just signed his own death warrant."

"Well, at least his defeat warrant," Martha said, as Pym slid the gate shut. "Anyway, thank you, Agent Pym."

"You're welcome. Are you hungry?"

"Yeah, actually. They've had me here all day… I just ate a bit of breakfast this morning, before you came and got me."

"I'll get you a meal in the next hour," he said.

She nodded, then sat down on her new bed, as he walked away.

* * *

 **Ugh, poor Martha. Thoughts?**

 **Reviews are love - they make me ridiculously happy! Please keep them coming!**

 **Thank you for reading. :-)**


	23. Chapter 23

**Martha is now custody as well. And, General Kir had given the Doctor a _harrowing_ ultimatum in the previous chapter, and so the Doctor had relented, and agreed to demonstrate how to re-squish a block of time into a capsule. Agent Pym, who has been scrupulous and respectful all along, had done nothing... because he couldn't, and honestly still hope to escape with his life. Martha and the Doctor have worked out that he is not like the other agents working for the Heimat Squad, but fortunately, the other agents haven't yet. *swipe forehead* Whew.**

 **So, hopefully you enjoy this chapter. Agent Pym is a complex guy. :-)**

* * *

TWENTY-THREE

Agent Pym entered the officers' work station, and logged into the computer system, to request a meal for Martha Jones.

He'd chosen _his_ favourite foods for the Doctor during the short time the Time Lord had been here, and now, he stared at the options, and reckoned he'd do the same for her. He sighed heavily as he did so, knowing that if General Kir or any of the other agents found out he'd been doing this, they would mock him.

 _Treating prisoners as though they are living things with rights and feelings… pfff. Especially the ones who had done nothing to hurt anyone? Double pfff._

Pym had worked for three different police and/or military organisations, and in each one of them, prisoners were looked upon as vermin (as indicated in the example of the prisoner-guard relationship he'd recounted to Martha). The thinking was, if they were in custody, they must have committed some crime, and did not deserve respect, unless and until a trial proved them innocent (which it rarely did).

Actually, Pym suspected that for the average agent, the thinking (however unconscious) was more along the lines of, "Well, earning power and control is hard. But someone's given me power over another living being without my having to earn it! I'd never get it otherwise so..."

Keep them alive until trial, that was usually the only directive. And certain species throughout the universe were worse vermin than others. Humans usually called for a middle-level of whatever deference there was; most of the universe was torn, on whether they were intelligent or not.

Agent Pym felt they were. Moreover, he felt they were mostly compassionate, and basically harmless, unlike, say, Time Lords, and the Heimat Squad, which he now realised he was working for.

But the Time Lords were gone, and the singular specimen they had here in custody, he was a different animal. He could see the universe in shades of grey, rather than in black and white. According to Pym's research, the Doctor was a bit inconsistent in his methods, but consistent in that he was on the side of good. He was clever, resourceful, benevolent, and like Pym himself, had a dominant soft side, that wanted to honour and learn more about everyone, everywhere. He had belonged to a species that had, apparently, wrought some havoc, but the Doctor was clearly a maverick.

After leaving his third steady job as "hired muscle," as he'd begun to think of it, and had learned about a general communiqué from an anonymous organisation looking for individuals with his skill-set to work on a "special project," Pym was hesitant. More than hesitant, actually. He'd wanted to get into a completely different métier, something that didn't require weapons and/or keeping hostages. But, after realising that he was only trained for one thing, and needed, alas, to eat, he had relented, and simply hoped that this "special project" wouldn't require any violence. When he'd learned that the Doctor was to become part of the effort, he had jumped at the chance to work directly with him.

"We need to make him believe he's been arrested by the Galactic Council," General Kir had said to him. "If he thinks he's been kidnapped, he'll clam up."

"Well, who wouldn't?" Pym had thought, but didn't say.

"The Doctor is wily. Smart. Watchful. Aware. You'll have to do some homework, if we're going to convince him, all right, Agent Pym? It's all on you. Are you up to it?"

He was up to it, though disappointed in the assignment, and the capacity in which he was going to have to work with the Doctor. Pym loathed the idea of deceiving him, arresting him, keeping him against his will, but tried to convince himself that any contact with the Doctor was a dream come true.

Not that he'd managed to fool the Doctor at all, but researching the Rights of the Living and the Galactic Constitution had been fascinating. It was the first time it had occurred to him to do so, and he'd made a decision: once he became free of this little endeavour, he'd try to achieve employment with the Council. Surely they needed skilled agents who could look after legitimate prisoners. Perhaps his wanting and needing to treat prisoners well would be an asset, not looked upon as a weakness. Perhaps his proclivity for actual _justice,_ over power, would finally serve him well.

As it was, he was clearly in it up to his neck, and he'd allied himself with an organisation bent on bringing about hell on Earth. Every bone in his body told him that this was wrong, and he wanted out of this job. But first, he wanted to help stop the coming disaster.

Much to his dismay, General Kir entered the station just as he was finishing his meal-selection task. Pym stood at attention.

"Ordering a meal for her?" asked the General.

"Yes, sir," said Pym.

"Fine. Listen," the General began. "At daybreak, Earth-time, we're going to conduct the Doctor to that bizarre machinery room the Time Lords set up."

"At daybreak?" Pym asked. "Why not deliver him there now, save time?"

"We need time to get Buford Greene back here," said Kir. "He had to return to the annex on Earth, for his own survival. On the plus side, it gives us time to plan for how to effectively wrangle the Doctor. Until today, I wasn't sure that such a thing was possible, but with Dr. Jones in custody, I'm sure we can control him. And Pym, I'd like you to be on the transfer team."

"The transfer team?"

"Yes, you asked to be on the Doctor's case, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," Pym answered.

"Good man. You've done a fine job so far, extracting the Doctor and deceiving him, then extracting Dr. Jones. I like consistency. It only makes sense to have you on the job when the Doctor is escorted."

"How many are on the… _team_?"

"You, and three other agents. And I will be there in the room, of course, along with Buford. He's really the lynchpin in all of this," Kir mused, with a sigh. "If the Eternity Agent doesn't learn about what the Doctor's doing in that room, the whole thing falls apart."

"You need four agents just to bring the Doctor down the hall? Sir?"

"He's shifty," said Kir. "I wouldn't be surprised if he tried something slick while he's out of his cell. So, yes, we'll need four agents. One to walk in front of him, one to walk behind, and you and Agent Oly will be on either side of him, containing his neck in Ankhaciers."

Pym swallowed hard. His mind filled with images of the Ankhaciers he'd seen… they were basically implements of torture. A steel loop fits tightly round the prisoner's neck, and is attached to a stiff rod, wielded by the guard. If the prisoner moves wrong, his throat could be cut. Using two of them, his neck could be quite easily broken.

"I'm not very comfortable with that, sir," Pym said, his voice shaking.

"You're not, eh?"

"No, sir."

"Well, I don't give a damn, Agent Pym," General Kir said with a frighteningly calm voice. "You can carry on with your namby-pamby Galactic Council, Rights of the Living bullshit, and your _due process_ and your cruelty scales, as long as it doesn't interfere with my plans. As soon as it does, you're going to man up and treat the prisoner like a goddamn prisoner."

"Yes, sir," Pym said, gulping again.

"Are we clear?"

"Crystal clear, sir."

"Good. There's a meeting in one hour with the other three members of the team, in the Fermeture Chamber. Be there."

"Yes, sir."

With that, Kir departed from the room, and Pym was left standing there, with his heart thundering at a million beats per minute, and his stomach having sunk to the floor.

He had been hinging all of his hopes upon the prospect that the Doctor would be able to slip away once he was out of his cell, elude them all, free Martha, and save the Earth. If he could get out from behind the bars, he could outsmart his captors. Apparently, though, the General had assumed this as well, and was taking extreme precautions.

What if he, Pym, could contribute to the transfer plan, and suggest that the Doctor be freed from the Ankhacier when they reach the manipulation room? Perhaps then, the Doctor would have enough room to do something heroic.

Or perhaps the Doctor, once inside the manipulation room, would simply "manipulate" the machinery therein to do something completely different from what he'd promised. General Kir and Buford Greene would never know the difference, would they? If they knew how to read or adjust the controls, they wouldn't need the Doctor, so perhaps…

But even then, there was still basically a time bomb under a street in a major city on Earth. All manipulation-room considerations aside, someone had to stop 1938 from exploding upon the present.

 _Right,_ thought Pym. _I guess it's up to me._

* * *

Martha's meal arrived, as promised, within an hour. She enjoyed it, though did not recognise anything she was eating. She still felt depressed, though, and lay down on her cot, after finishing.

She didn't know how long she'd spent idling there, staring at the wall, but it couldn't have been more than an hour before Agent Pym appeared at the bars.

"Hello Dr. Jones," he said, rather seriously. "Time for a conjugal visit."

"Excuse me?" she said, sitting up.

"You and the Doctor are in my care. I'm still adhering to the parameters of due process, and I will continue to do so until my so-called superiors order me otherwise. So, if you wish to see your partner, you are being given that opportunity."

She stood. "All right… thank you. Does the General know?"

"That I'm continuing to treat you and the Doctor according to the Galactic Constitution, as long as I have any autonomy in the matter? Yes."

"Okay," Martha said, having caught Pym's tone, suggesting that all of this was happening on a technicality, and that he was just trying not to get himself hideously punished for being a nice bloke.

He opened her cell, and led the way down a few corridors. On the way, he conversed with her.

"Are you doing all right?" he asked, softly.

"I'm alive, and haven't been raped. So, yeah, I guess I'm as well as could be expected."

"I'm leading you to the same room in which the two of you met before," he told her.

"Okay."

He chuckled. "Wow, it seems like months have gone by since then, doesn't it?"

"It kind of does," she realised.

"It was just three nights ago, I think," he marvelled. "When I called you and had you set up all those protocols with the TARDIS, so you could come visit…"

"Three nights? Wow," she breathed. "So much has happened since then."

"What did you think? Did you know I was legitimate?"

"I had no idea," Martha said. "I just knew that standing still on Earth wasn't doing any good, and I had possibly one chance to see the Doctor, so I took it. Then, I was pretty certain I was being held captive when that other agent left me in that room alone. How little I knew then."

"You thought it was a trap? Even after the Doctor set up the connection with the sonic screwdriver? If it separated from you, it would set off alarms across the universe?"

"Yeah, I thought so even then," she admitted. "What do I know about the sonic screwdriver? What did I know about you, at that time? You could have been lying to me, making the whole thing up… but again, I only had one chance…"

"So you brought the sonic screwdriver with you, and kept it on your person," he said, attempting to sound like he was reminiscing with her. For the first time, now, his discourse had begun to sound fake, and she wondered what he was getting at.

"Yes, I did," she said, cautiously.

"And, fortunately, no bells were sent ringing in other galaxies."

"Thankfully."

"So, after you saw the Doctor and made contact again with the TARDIS, you must've taken it with you."

"No," she said. "He disarmed the protocol and kept it with him when I left. He said he trusted that you'd see to it that I got home, and the separation fail-safe thing wasn't needed. Plus, I'd brought him some clothes, so now he actually had someplace to stow it. We both thought he'd get more use out of it, ultimately, than I would."

"Indeed. So the Doctor has it now?"

"Yeah," she said. "What's going on, Pym? What's with the screwdriver obsession?"

"Oh," he laughed. "It's not an obsession. It was just making conversation. It occurred to me to wonder what had happened to it, is all."

"Erm, okay," she said, slowly, looking at him with concern, and still, caution.

"Anyway, here we are," he said, stopping in front of a familiar-looking door. He pressed a button that opened it, and ushered her in. "Just wait a few minutes or so, and the Doctor with be with you shortly."

"Okay. Thanks."

* * *

The Doctor, too, had been lying on his side, depressed, staring blankly at the wall when Pym turned up at the bars. He had removed his dress shirt and tie, his blue suit jacket, shoes and socks, and had them all laid out nearby. At the moment, he was just donning his trousers and a navy-blue tee shirt.

"Hello, Doctor," the agent said, rather stoically.

"Hi," the Time Lord said flatly.

"Everything okay?"

"Fantastic."

"You should know, Martha's fine."

"She's traumatised," the Doctor said. "I only know that because _I'm_ bloody traumatised."

"That General..."

"The things he said he would do," the Doctor sighed. "And the things he _did_ do. The cuffs, the tape, having her thrown about and _handled_ …"

"I'm sorry."

"I know," the Doctor said. Then he sat up. "You know, until a few hours ago, considering I was a prisoner, I wasn't that unhappy. Now, I want to burn this place to the ground."

"Well, never mind that," said Pym. "Due process dictates that you have the choice of seeing your partner now, if you'd like."

"Really? Already?"

"Well, things were done to her – to you both – that rate highly only Orlinger's cruelty scale. The procedure is, a compassionate visit for both of your comfort."

The Doctor stood. "Is it really?"

"Do you care?"

"No," he said, moving forward toward the bars, and the gate.

Pym unlocked the gate, but as he did so, he said, "Erm, Doctor, you might want to get dressed. You know, bring your belongings with you. Just in case. You never know."

The Doctor looked at him with suspicious, narrow eyes, and then did as the agent had suggested. He quickly put on his shirt, buttoned it up and tucked it in, followed by his suit jacket. He folded up his tie and stuck it in his trouser pocket. Then he picked up his socks and shoes and exited the cell.

While they walked, Pym walked into an electrical box that jutted out from the wall, and the side panel fell off. He cursed, and attempted half-heartedly to replace the panel. The Doctor saw clearly that he'd run into the box intentionally.

"This place is falling apart," Pym said, shaking his head, abandoning the panel. "So many things need repairing…"

"Mm," the Doctor said. "You must be underfunded."

"And understaffed," Pym sighed, exaggeratedly.

They arrived at the room where Martha was waiting, and Pym made a show of having to hit the button twice in order to get the door to open.

"Wow… you really _should_ get a man in," the Doctor said. "Can't have that thing going on the fritz."

"Indeed not," Pym said, as the Doctor stepped inside the room. "I mean, already the deadlocking mechanism is down. If the external locking goes down too, I don't know what we'll do."

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other with surprise, and great meaning.

"What did you just say?" the Doctor asked him.

"Enjoy your visit," Pym said, pointedly ignoring the question as he stepped out into the hallway.

"Pym, are you sure about this?" the Doctor asked.

"Sure that I'm adhering to parameters for the Rights of the Living as supported by the Galactic Council, by allowing two traumatised prisoners to see each other in comfort? Well… reasonably." He smiled. "You have twenty-eight galactic minutes, Doctor, Martha."

"Thank you, Agent Pym."

"Don't thank me," said the agent. "Just… you know… do what I brought you here to do."

With a wink, he closed the door, and the Doctor and Martha were left alone.

* * *

 **All righty. Not the world's most exciting chapter, but a review would not go amiss right now! If you're reading and following, it's only fair to drop me a line once in a while, with your thoughts and feedback. That sort of thing is what keeps us writers writing!**

 **Thank you so much, by the way! :-)**


	24. Chapter 24

**Next phase of our story begins now. Sorry if this chapter is a bit schizophrenic. Hope you enjoy it anyway! :-)**

* * *

TWENTY-FOUR

They were in a room that did not have electrified walls nor a deadlock seal on the door, and they had a sonic screwdriver at hand. Escaping was frighteningly easy. So frightening that Martha didn't trust it.

The Doctor spent a minute or two putting his ensemble back together - shirt, jacket, shoes, tie rolled up and shoved in his pocket.

"Are you sure Pym is on the up-and-up?" Martha asked as the Doctor approached the door with a voracious look on his face.

"Relatively."

"What if he's not? What if he's just been playing us this whole time, and we're walking into a trap?"

"What if? We remain prisoners."

"Okay. But…"

"Tell me something, Martha. When Agent Pym phoned you and said 'come to the inner sanctum to visit the Doctor, we've got safeguards in place,' did you trust him?"

She paused. "I wasn't sure whether I should or not," she confessed.

"So if you weren't sure, why did you come? You thought you might be walking into a trap, so what made you take the risk?"

"It was better than standing about, waiting for something to happen."

"Exactly. Even if Agent Pym has been only _pretending_ to help us…"

"… what else could we do? Give up our chance to escape?"

He smiled at her. "So, shall we?" He held out his hand.

She took it.

He aimed the sonic screwdriver at the door, and the thing buzzed. They both heard a loud _clang_ , as though a bolt had been displaced.

From there, it was easy to open the door, sneak down a short hallway, quietly disarm all of the security cameras along the way before even getting close to them, and locate the fleet hangar.

"All these space complexes have a kind of intuitive layout," he said. "I've seen a million of 'em."

He started up a small spacecraft, and they were off, within minutes. He used the navigation system to find the Corocoup Wormhole, muttering all the while that this technology had been stolen from his people. Or, now he knew, perhaps even given to them by his people.

"Ah-ha, but here's a bit of genius that they _didn't_ get from the Time Lords," the Doctor said. "This is the bit that's all Doctor!"

"What are you doing?" Martha asked, alarmed, as he tore off a panel from the dash.

"This thing, even through the wormhole, will take twelve hours to get us back to Earth, and we don't have that kind of time," he said. "If I can boost the spatial-bypass interaction system, I can quadruple the speed through the hole. If we're lucky, I can boost the regular thrusters as well, and we'll be home in ninety minutes!"

He pulled a bunch of wires out from the hole he had made and began furiously sonicking things. Martha felt the craft almost immediately gaining speed, and then a ripping sound took over the space around them, and the Doctor explained that this was the Corocoup Wormhole, essentially a hole through the universe caused when a supernova happened at the same time as a wafting time-ribbon, and _voilà_ , a shortcut from one corner of existence to another.

"The Kyriarch System and the Milky Way, Martha, would not be accessible to one another within your lifetime, using conventional means," he said. "That is to say, _flying_ from one to another would take upwards of two-hundred-fifty years. But add a bunch of weird time junk, like a TARDIS or a wormhole, and you've got yourself a nice little _chemin de traverse._ "

And indeed, they were approaching Earth within the ninety minutes that the Doctor had predicted. He asked to borrow Martha's phone.

"Donna!" he shouted. "Blimey, it's good to hear your voice!"

Martha could hear Donna's ecstatic voice screeching on the other end.

"Yeah, yeah… no time for that," he said, quelling her. "I need you to do something for me. Are you at Martha's flat? Is the TARDIS still parked in the back garden?"

* * *

There was a certain inertia, which, after having ripped across the cosmos at ridiculous speeds, felt like almost literal _standing still_.

"That's because we _are_ standing still," the Doctor said. "Well, more or less."

"It's unsettling," Martha commented.

Just then, she heard the sound of the TARDIS, loud and everywhere. The Doctor laughed happily, and when the grinding stopped, he stood up from his seat, and popped the hatch above his head. The entire top of the space craft lifted off, and they saw that the TARDIS had materialized around them, with the small space craft jammed into one corner.

Donna and Colin were standing on the platform, right beside the controls.

The Doctor stumbled out of the craft, and fell into a big hug with Donna, while Colin came forward and helped Martha down.

"So glad you're safe," Colin said, pulling her into a hug as well. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"They scared the life out of both of us, but didn't hurt me."

The Doctor released Donna. "Showed their true colours, too," he added, practically growling.

"Well, the whole thing scared the life out of me, as well!" Colin said, a delighted, relieved look on his face.

The Doctor turned to Colin. The two shook hands. "Well, you've been initiated, I see."

"So it would seem," Colin sighed, looking around at the TARDIS' interior. "Somewhat reluctantly, if I'm honest."

"You're not going to be a clod, are you? I can't have you about if you're a clod."

"Doctor!" Donna cried.

Martha chuckled.

Colin laughed as well. "I'm not a clod. But you'll have to give me some time to adjust."

"That I can handle," said the Doctor, slapping him on the arm. "If anyone's got time to give, it's me. Welcome aboard. Mostly because we need all the help we can get, and I haven't got time for a proper interview."

"Doctor, it's in the news today," Donna said, worriedly. "The opening of the time capsule is happening in just a couple of hours, if that!"

"Right," he said. "We've got to stop it."

"This will…" Colin said, closing his eyes. He seemed to be thinking hard. " _Reset time_ back to 1938, and send us on a loop?"

"Not just that," said Martha. "It could flatten London, and send us into a Nazi Apocalypse."

"Nazi Apocalypse?" Donna asked. "That sounds like a bad movie! What the hell does that mean?"

"Think about it," the Doctor said. "London gets flattened in 1938…"

"No way it can withstand the Blitz, or the rest of the war…" she continued.

"Oh, shit," Colin said. "We better get a shift on. What do we do, Doctor?"

Both Martha and Donna looked at him with big smiles. Martha said, "Wow, you're a quick study, aren't you, cousin?"

"You and Donna are going to need to try and stop them opening that time capsule," the Doctor said to Colin.

"How do we do that?"

Donna said, "We'll go to the corner of Earl's Court and Bolton Gardens, and see what we can do."

"Actually," the Doctor said. "It might still be early enough that you could go to their office building, and try to head them off at the pass."

"Okay, but… how?" asked Colin.

"I dunno," Donna shrugged. "Flirt with them? Create a diversion? Let the air out of their tyres?"

" _That's_ the plan?" Colin asked, rather incredulous.

"Yep," she said. "It's kind of how we roll."

"So… with _no_ plan?"

"Sometimes, yeah."

He shrugged, though he looked worried. "Okay, then."

"Hold on for departure, kids," the Doctor said, flipping a switch, causing the TARDIS' gears to grind, and dematerialise. Once its signature noise had stopped, the Doctor ran down the ramp and looked outside. "There's no one gathering round the time capsule yet."

With that, he ran back up to the controls, and the TARDIS moved again.

"So, we're at the building now," Donna said.

"Yes," the Doctor confirmed. "Do whatever you have to do, to stop them going into the city. Also, you might do some reconnaissance to try and find out if there's a remote detonation device somewhere in the building."

"Wait, Doctor," Martha said. "Didn't you say that something about the building is keeping Buford Greene alive indefinitely?"

"What?" Colin spat. "How is that possible?"

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio," Martha said to her cousin.

"I don't know," the Doctor said, by way of answering Colin's question. "Myriad different possibilities abound, unfortunately. Construction materials, structural design, something in the wiring, something hidden in the walls… eventually, I guess we'll have to work it out, because we can't have him knocking about eternally. Not that I'm keen on killing him, it's just..."

"We get it," Martha assured him.

"What are you two going to do?" Donna asked the Doctor.

"What we do best," he said. "Time travel, and investigation."

* * *

It was cold and windy when the Doctor and Martha stepped out of the TARDIS. Luckily, they had anticipated as much, and Martha had gone back into one of the wardrobes to find a coat. She had chosen a long, wool, button-up in a light charcoal colour, along with a matching hat. The fact that her jeans and boots stuck out the bottom didn't seem worth addressing, at the moment.

They were on the corner of Earl's Court Road and Bolton Gardens, and it was the first of January, 1938, seven a.m. The remnants of Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations could be seen – favours in the streets, Christmas trees in windows, decorations hanging from eaves, people dragging themselves home, looking a bit worse-for-wear. In front of them, there was no high-rise building reserved for student housing, but rather, a block of standard London shops: a tailor, an apothecary, a spice-seller, and a bakery on the corner.

Martha looked about at the frigid, grey morning. "Well, it's definitely January in London," she said, shivering a bit, even in her wool coat.

When the Doctor did not comment, she looked up at him, and saw him staring fixedly at the place where they knew the time capsule was buried. Or, would be soon. Martha wasn't clear on whether it was here already, or not. Though, from the Doctor's expression, she reckoned it was.

"What?" she asked. "Spidey senses tingling?"

"Oh yes," he breathed. "Can't you see it?"

Martha studied the spot he seemed fixated on. "See what?"

The Doctor took about ten steps forward and stood on the slab of pavement in question. When he did that, Martha began to hear a low, pulsating hum, like a bass line that she could feel in her guts and bones. In addition, the Doctor began to glow. The light was orange at first, then faded to yellow, to green to blue… then back to green. The green became a sickly brownish color, and became less like a glow and more like a swarm of dust that began to obscure him from view. With that, the Doctor tore himself away from the spot. He stumbled to the kerb and retched a few times, then vomited into the gutter.

"Oh my God, Doctor!" she cried out, rushing to his side. She stroked his back for a few moments, then, "What happened? Can you stand up?"

"Give me a minute," he said. He shut his eyes, braced himself against the kerb with one hand, and just seemed to try to get his bearings. After a few seconds he said, "The binding of this year is happening right here. Right _there_ … on that spot."

"We knew that, didn't we?"

"Yes," he said. Then he stood up slowly, and looked again at the spot. "You really can't see it?"

"See what?" she repeated.

"There are glowing, pulsating lines radiating from there, like a web," he said.

"There are?"

He nodded. "Hundreds of them. Like… twine made of time energy, literally wrapping up this block of existence, trussing it up, pressing it into a tiny, tiny space."

"Oh, wow."

"We are seeing the original work of the Time Lords," he said. "Or, I am."

"So… when the capsule is opened on the other end, it's going to undo all of the ties?" Martha looked at the spot, and squinted, hoping maybe to see what the Doctor could see, but of course, in vain.

He shifted his gaze upward, then to the left, right and all around. He looked quite far away… "Yes," he whispered. "And it's tight, Martha. This was a violent crushing of a block of time, compacting it like a sausage. Gagging it. The impact is going to be…"

"Huge? Like you thought?"

"Maybe even worse." With that, he turned and ran back to the TARDIS, which was parked perhaps thirty yards up Earl's Court Road from the spot in question. Martha followed, as fast as she could, and got through the door just in time to hear the low drumming of the great vessel, followed by the high-pitched gears.

"Where are we going?"

The TARDIS stopped, and the Doctor began to move toward the door again, where Martha was still standing. She turned and looked outside, then stepped onto some grass. A violent wind blew across the water in front of her, spraying her in the face just a bit. Very, very faintly on the horizon, land could be seen. She knew she was standing atop the cliffs of Dover, looking across the English Channel at France.

The Doctor stepped out behind her, and his gaze was drawn upward. "The twine isn't any weaker here… in fact, there's more lines, I think… or maybe that's just an illusion…" His voice was faraway and wistful, and Martha knew he was not actually speaking to her.

"Why did you bring us here?" she wondered, nevertheless.

It took him a few moments to respond, "I suppose, to confirm what I already knew. That the binding stretches across the Channel – I mean, it's significantly less tense here, but it's still visible. And it probably stretches across the planet, in varying degrees. That the damage will be far bigger than just London. That time will turn inside-out and negate 2008 as we know it, and the ripple effect will raise the tides across the English Channel, and flood Northern France. France can ill afford to be weakened in the next few years either… as it was, they didn't do so well, sitting right there next to Germany with no buffer. If _this_ happens…"

"I know what happens," she said, softly.

He nodded, but didn't say anything.

"What do we do about it, Doctor? I mean, if Donna and Colin can stop them in 2008 from opening the capsule, will that solve the problem? Can 1938 remain bound up like this indefinitely?"

"No," he said, staring out at the sea. "The whole thing is too unstable."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"I can _see_ it, Martha. This year, this time and place, waiting to burst. It's like the sky and the air are pulsating, or… this reality is holding its breath. It wants out. This time and place, Martha… just waiting to discover all the theoretical space it could occupy, wiping out your _present_."

"Is there any way to lessen the pressure? Could we, like, create a slow leak?""

He seemed to snap out of a trance just then, and looked at her with curious eyes. "Interesting question," he commented, then began to pace back and forth along the cliff. "The twine, as it were, is made of fabric from the Vortex. The Vortex responds to time anomalies with confusion and entropy – it's all so _incredibly_ unstable. I mean, there are things the TARDIS could do to vent the binding slowly, but it would be exceedingly difficult to regulate."

"Isn't it worth a try?"

"Opening up 1938 slowly onto 2008? It might mean two times in history, overlapping each other, gradually changing one into the other. People would be able to cross from one time to the next, just by walking down the street. It would change from one day to another – one _hour_ to another. People would see ghosts… the ghosts of buildings, of things that used to be, or that will be."

"Sounds like something that _my_ London wouldn't handle very well," she muttered.

"Let alone London of 1938."

"Would such a thing weaken Great Britain in any way, leading up to the war?"

He closed his eyes, and thought about it, tried to feel the possibilities and consequences of time, space, and reality. "There would be hysteria and confusion on both sides. Which you and I both know would lead to violence on both sides. There would likely be grand gestures on the part of the government on both sides – possibly mobilisation of police and/or military. People would be killed in the wrong place, and more importantly, in the wrong time. The way people see the world changes, therefore the face of science changes, and the Church loses its mind for a while…"

"And this lasts for how long?"

"I dunno… three years? Maybe less."

"So… we run the risk of Nazi Blitz bombs being dropped on parts of the early twenty-first century."

"Yeah."

"Okay, so, out of the question. What else have we got?"

"I dunno, Martha," he said, taking her hand. "I just don't know right now."

* * *

 **Whoa. As Martha once pointed out, when the Doctor says, "I don't know," it's rare.**

 **So, don't be a stranger! Drop me a line, let me know if you're enjoying yourself here!**


	25. Chapter 25

**In the previous chapter, we saw Martha and the Doctor visit 1938, and learned that (oh dear God) the Doctor doesn't know what to do! 1938 is trussed up like a ham, and it's all unstable and waiting to burst...**

 **Meanwhile, Donna and Colin were told they're supposed to try and head off Buford and Company at the pass, before they even leave their office building to go to the capsule site. Failing that, the Doctor suggested, they might try and find a remote detonation device.**

 **And so... maybe they will. Enjoy!**

* * *

TWENTY-FIVE

Donna and Colin stepped out of the TARDIS, and the vessel almost immediately dematerialised behind them.

"Why do I feel like I've just been sent deep-sea diving, and I've just been cut loose from the ship?" Colin asked her.

"Because you have," she answered easily.

Just as the two of them were about to walk forward and enter the building through a side door, a line of about a dozen suit-clad men and women came through that very door, looking rather serious. Though, many of them looked more worried than anything else. Donna guessed that this is the same group that had been assembled in the conference room two days before, when she'd eavesdropped on their big meeting.

"Have you got one of those Smartphones?" Donna asked Colin.

"You know I do."

"Let me borrow it."

He extracted the device from his breast pocket and handed it to her. "What for?"

Ignoring the question, she said, quickly and softly, "Go in the building and skulk about, see what you can see."

"What?"

"Remote detonation device… something!"

"I have no idea…"

"Just go! Call it a baptism by fire!"

With that, she sauntered right up to the person at the head of the procession, and stuck the phone right in his face.

"Hi there," she said. "Donna Noble from _The Chiswick Courier,_ how are you today?"

"Erm, fine," the man said, eyeing her suspiciously.

The line of people filing out behind him nearly piled up like a heap, as people were taken off-guard by the sudden halt.

"I presume you're heading to Earl's Court and Bolton Gardens for the big opening!" she said, watching Colin, out of the corner of her eye, sneak into the building.

The man looked at his colleagues, who all stared back at him like rabbits in headlights. "Y-yes."

"Wonderful. What sorts of artefacts are you expecting to find?"

* * *

Colin had no idea what he was doing. Moreover, he had no idea how long Donna was planning on keeping that whole group of people from leaving the scene… indefinitely. She certainly could hold them for a few minutes, but it's not like _he_ had any idea how to undo do time capsule thing on his own while she distracted the suits.

"Remote detonation device… remote detonation device… let's see," he mused to himself softly, as he stood in the back hallway where he'd entered. "If I were some sort of evil genius, and I had a magic button, where would I put it?"

He sighed and began looking for a door that might lead to the basement.

The building was not large; he'd known that from looking at the blue prints with Donna a few days ago (which now felt like months). So, he was quite easily able to find an unmarked door with a heavy doorknob that differed from all of the others in the building. He went through it, verified that it would not lock behind him, and indeed, found a staircase leading down.,

"A better question would be, _if I were a remote detonation device, what would I look like?_ " he mused again, as he made his way down two flights of stairs. "Well, Colin, I'm glad you asked that. The answer is, _I have no bloody idea._ "

He switched on the light when he reached the bottom of the stairs. He was not surprised (and was surprised that he was not surprised) to find living quarters there – nothing fancy, just a single bed, an icebox, a little stove. There was also a table and chair set, a radio, and armchair with a lamp, and a bookshelf. Not far away, there was a door, so Colin crossed to it, and peeked through. It was a loo.

Indeed, a person would have everything they need to live here more or less comfortably. But, that was only one corner of rather a big room. The rest of the space was curious indeed.

The ceiling was high – higher than one might expect for the basement and foundation of a building this size. Colin reckoned that a fairly standard 2.25-metre space with standard-spaced housing struts would distribute the weight just fine for a building like this.

That's when he realised that something else was off. And he'd only seen this sort of thing one place before…

That is, only one place where the ceiling wasn't collapsing.

And suddenly, he felt a frisson – an uneasy change of pressure in the room. It made him feel prickly, and a bit paranoid...

* * *

Donna had lost her grip on the group of people who had just emerged from Buford S. Greene's place of work. She'd got a recording on Colin's phone of the guy at the front of the parade hemming and hawing about "artefacts" from "bygone days," but hadn't succeeded in keeping them occupied long enough to stave off the detonation until the Doctor could get it sorted.

Not that she thought she'd be able to do that alone.

Luckily, as the suits were piling into three black, unmarked SUVs, Martha and the Doctor stepped off the TARDIS just across the street. The Doctor looked depressed, despondent…

Donna's eyes fixed on him as the two approached. "Uh oh."

"Yeah," Martha sighed.

"No answers?"

"No, just more questions. Doctor, tell her about the slow vent," Martha requested.

"Never mind that," the Doctor spat. " _That_ is our big uh-oh!" He was pointing at the SUVs driving away from the kerb.

"Sorry – I couldn't hold them," Donna said.

"Okay," he said. "Where's Colin?"

"Inside," she said. "I sent him in to look for a remote detonator. He might know it if he sees one, yeah?"

"Perhaps," the Doctor said, now walking toward the building with purpose.

"What are we doing?" Martha asked, following, along with Donna.

"Finding Colin," he said. "I have a question for him. I don't suppose you know which way the basement door might be, Donna?"

"What makes you think I'd know that?"

"What makes you think Colin's in the basement?" Martha asked.

The three entered the building, and the Doctor said, "If I were a bloke who's never done this before, and I'm looking for a magical button being kept secret by some bad guy, I'd go to the basement, wouldn't you?"

"I… guess," Martha said, shrugging at Donna.

"You two see what you can find upstairs," he said. "Finding and disarming a remote detonation device isn't a bad idea… assuming there is one. If there isn't, well, we'll have to hurry. Thank goodness for the TARDIS, right?"

Donna and Martha went to the right, and the Doctor went straight ahead when they reached the first corner, and like Colin, he didn't have any trouble finding the basement door.

"Colin? Are you down here?" he said from the top of the stairs.

"Doctor? Is that you?"

"Yeah!"

"Come down," Colin requested.

The Doctor descended the steps, and entered the large, open basement space. The first thing he noticed off to the left was what he presumed to be Buford S. Greene's somewhat spartan living quarters.

"Wonder how long he's been living here," the Doctor sighed. "How long does he think he can keep his sanity, living like this, anyway? For God's sake, he thinks he's going to live forever…"

"Did you feel that thing?" Colin asked.

"Feel what thing?"

"That thing… it was really weird… hard to explain…" Colin said. "Like, a sudden pressure change or something."

"Pressure change? No, I didn't feel it," the Doctor told him. "But it's probably not good, whatever it is. How long ago?"

"I dunno, like a minute."

"I don't know what it could be, other than yet another sign that we need to bloody hurry."

"Okay. Look," Colin said, gesturing to the room.

The Doctor saw a floor space about the size that the building might suggest from the outside, with exposed struts all along the walls. In the middle of the room, there were three columns that were decidedly special.

"Whoa," the Doctor said, looking around.

"I know," Colin replied, eyes wide.

The Time Lord walked forward and touched one of the columns. "These are… these are…"

"…insufficient for holding this building up," Colin finished.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"Look around, Doctor," Colin insisted. "Look at the struts. With a ceiling this high, struts that far apart and these three columns… well, how is this building not collapsing on us? I have literally no idea what's keeping this foundation from completely caving in!"

The Doctor looked around. "Actually, I was about to ask… just that."

"About the struts?"

"No, just if you if you were noticing anything weird about this place from an architect's point of view. I was expecting, say, screws of a substance you didn't recognise, or maybe some rivets at an inappropriate angle, that, say, triangulate into a talisman-like shape."

"What are you on about?"

"Talisman. Something to suggest what's keeping this bloke alive indefinitely... but totally structurally unsound? Really?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked. "That's all you're seeing? I mean, I suppose… I could examine the materials and do the math…"

"Doctor, I know what I'm talking about! I've designed dozens of basements, and _this_ design would get me sacked!" Then he realised that the Doctor had originally zeroed in on something different. "Why? What were you thinking is _off_ about this place?"

"The columns," he answered. "They're like…"

"Oh! They're like the ones in your spaceship," Colin noticed just now. "I mean, I'd realised that the same structural questions were occurring to me when I was in your ship, but I didn't realise until just this minute that the columns are actually in the same style!"

The Doctor began to saunter around the room, studying the ceiling, struts, columns, floor, living space… everything. "I suppose it's not _that_ bizarre, considering my people are involved in all of this. It didn't occur to me that they might have built _this_ building as well."

"Wow, this is weird."

"Welcome to my life," the Doctor said to him, absently. "Weird is my middle name. Well, not really. But it absolutely could be. And my surname, if you like. Doctor Weird."

"Thing is, though," Colin said, moving to the wall to examine the struts. "As far as I can tell, the construction materials are fairly standard. There's concrete, solid wood, steel nails."

"All stuff found on Earth, you mean?" the Doctor asked. "Except for the columns."

"Yeah," Colin shrugged. "It looks like a shoddy building site, from my point of view. Normal, if poorly-rendered."

The Doctor scowled, and continued to walk around the room contemplatively. "What _is_ it with this place, eh?"

* * *

After going in separate directions from the Doctor, Martha and Donna headed upstairs to the glass conference room.

They hadn't expected to see anyone in the building, having assumed that everyone would be off to the time capsule site, so they were taken off-guard. And as soon as they spied Buford S. Greene, of all people, standing still in the conference room, Donna realised that he had, indeed, been rather conspicuously absent from the procession of suits headed to Earl's Court Road.

They stopped in their tracks and looked at each other with surprise.

"Well, bollocks," Donna whispered. "What now?"

"Plan B," Martha whispered back. "Instead of finding a remote detonation device, maybe we can convince him to call it off."

"Seriously?"

"What would the Doctor do?"

"Talk his ear off," Donna sighed.

"Exactly," Martha said, heading up the stairs. Donna followed.

When they reached the top of the stairs, they turned right, then walked about twenty paces to the conference room door. They pulled it open and stepped inside.

"Hello, ladies," Buford Greene said. He was standing at the other end of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out of a wide window toward the city. In the distance, the London Eye could be seen.

"Hello, Mr. Greene," Martha said. After a pause, she admitted, "We didn't know you'd realised we were here."

"I know the Doctor is here," he said. "You couldn't be far behind. I was told he'd escaped from the Inner Sanctum… how did he do it?"

"Don't you mean the Kyriarch System?"

"If you like."

"No-one knows how he escaped?" Martha asked, trying not to sound concerned.

"No-one seems to," Greene replied.

"Well, that is our little secret, I'm afraid," Martha said. In truth, she was relieved to hear that at least from Greene's point of view, Pym's role in their freedom was not common knowledge, which hopefully meant that the agent would be safe, until the Doctor had a chance to extract him.

"But you can bet they didn't have to use any stolen technology, unlike some people," Donna said.

Greene turned and faced them, hands still clasped behind him. He smiled pleasantly. "I'm not using any stolen technology," he said. "Everything I have, I've been given."

"Whatever," Donna quipped. "Potato po-tah-to."

"And to be perfectly honest," Greene continued. "I don't have independent use of anything, myself. It's all being done _to_ me. With my full permission, and cooperation, of course. Though, once I know how to restart the time loop, I _will_ have some agency of my own."

"So, apart from hinging their hopes on you to play Time Lord once every seventy years, it's all hands-off for you," Martha surmised. "They're keeping you alive, they're driving the action, and whatnot."

"Indeed, Dr. Jones," he said, pleasantly.

"So how did you know the Doctor is in the building, then?" Donna wanted to know. "You don't have some sort of artificially-acquired Time Lord mojo going on?"

Greene laughed. "Heavens, no. That's preposterous! As though the Time Lords would even consider sharing their power!"

"Surveillance, then," Martha assumed.

"No," he told her. "I know he's in the building because the building can feel him."

"What _are_ you talking about?" Donna asked, impatiently.

"The air here is disturbed when he enters," Greene explained. "Well, it's not just the Doctor – it's any Time Lord. But since he's all there is…"

"Wait," Martha cut in. "The _air_ is disturbed?"

"Yes, well, maybe not the _air,_ exactly, but I don't know how to explain it scientifically. Something in the fabric of this place _changes,_ and it's palpable. The atmosphere vibrates differently than normal, and it's very unsettling. For a few minutes, anyway, and then you acclimate. It changes again when he leaves."

"Why hasn't the Doctor mentioned it?" she wondered.

"He hasn't noticed," he said. "He hasn't felt the _change_ , exactly. He'd have to be standing in the building already when he comes in, which… I suppose is possible, given who he is, and what he can do. I've felt the switch in the environment when the Doctor has entered the building. Others have, as well – they aren't sure what to make of it. I'm the only one who knows what it is. Everyone else just tries to chalk it up to the barometric pressure, or something that's all in their heads."

"We didn't feel it because we entered the building at the same time as he did… or just a few seconds later," Donna mused.

"Exactly," Greene told her.

"But what about when you first met, over at the time capsule site?" Donna asked. "There was some definite recognition there."

"I recognised that he was a man who was acting bizarrely and didn't belong there, who wasn't just making small talk. I recognised that he might make trouble for us," Greene answered. "It was my own intuition – it was nothing to do with 'mojo' or technology."

"So, you're here, what? Guarding the place, just in case the Doctor comes a-skulking?" Martha asked. "Because I'd have thought you wouldn't miss the opening of your pet project."

"I'll get to witness that plenty of times over the milllenia," he said. "I'm missing it this time because I have to spend three times as much time _inside_ the building as out."

"Or?"

"Or I die," he answered simply. "And I'm not meant to do that. Ever."

"Three times as much time in the building as out. The Time Lords decided that?"

"They didn't _decide_ it. They did the math, and that's what they came up with, in order to keep a human alive indefinitely, with the mechanisms they've put in place. Anyway, I was in the Kyriarch system a bit too long, and put myself in peril. I didn't plan ahead, and now I'm stuck here. For now. I have to catch up on my time inside."

"What is so flipping special about _inside?_ " Donna asked, point-blank. "What is it with this building?"

He smiled wistfully, with a combination of awe and worry. "Oh, Ms. Noble. If only you understood where you were standing."

"Help me understand, then."

"I don't think I'm the best man for that job," he confessed. " _That_ man is... well, sneaking about downstairs just now probably, unless he's standing on the landing trying to eavesdrop."

"And you're not meant to die, ever?" Donna confirmed. "Why the hell would you want to live forever?"

He sat down in one of the conference chairs, and leaned back, taking a deep breath.

"When it started, it was just a question of surviving, not living forever," he said.

"Surviving what?"

"I had chronic Bradycardia," he admitted.

Martha sucked in some air through her teeth. "Ooh, in 1938?"

He nodded. "Most of my life. I felt like a ticking bloody time-bomb."

"What is Bradycardia?" Donna asked. "Sounds serious."

Martha shrugged. "These days… well, yeah, it's definitely a condition that needs attention. But back then?"

"A death sentence?" she asked. "I mean, an _early_ death?"

"More or less. It's a heart condition," Greene said. "It causes fatigue, dizziness, chest pain…"

"Can lead to congestive heart failure," Martha added. "Myocardial infarction…"

"What?" Donna asked, flatly.

"Heart attack," she clarified. "Sudden cardiac death. It's caused by anything from prolonged sleep apnea to syphilis."

"I did not have syphilis!" he shouted, outraged.

"I didn't say you did," Martha retorted. "As I said, there are lots of causes."

"Anyway, without pacemakers or any other such option, in 1938… well, at age forty-two, I felt my days were numbered. I could drop dead at any second. I had never been anywhere, never seen anything. I had never…" he swallowed hard, and stopped.

"What?" Donna probed. "What were you going to say?"

"Never been with a woman," he said, quietly.

"Oh," she sighed. "I'm sorry."

"I was a sickly child, and portly adult," he said, shrugging. "Not exactly the recipe for a born ladies' man."

As Donna launched into a commiserating answer, and began falling down what Martha felt must be a wormhole with Buford S. Greene, it occurred to Martha that they were wasting time. They had the villain talking, like the Doctor always did, but the problem had not been solved! 1938 was still poised to flatten London in the next half hour…

Martha began to cast her eyes about the office, through the glass walls, for any indicator of where a remote detonator might be. She tried to think fast, and wondered how she might create a ruse to get out into the open office area, and look about.

She must've been wicked obvious in her search, because hearing Greene say, "Dr. Jones?" snapped her out of her reverie. She looked at him, and found him holding a device in his hand – a remote control of sorts. "Looking for this?"

And then he smiled at her, and deposited it back in his pocket.

* * *

 **Well, what now? Sheesh, this guy is stubborn. ;-)**

 **If you're reading, play fair, and send a review as well. Just take a minute and make my day! Thank you for reading, either way!**


	26. Chapter 26

**Buford S. Greene has just revealed, as villains often do, why he's doing what he's doing, and how to undo it. *sigh* Why are they so predictable? ;-)**

 **He's shown Martha and Donna the remote detonator he's been keeping in his pocket...**

 **Okay, so now what?**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

TWENTY-SIX

"So you _do_ have a magic button," Martha sighed. " _You_ have it."

"Yes, indeed," he said, rocking back on his heels, much the way Martha had seen the Doctor do a hundred times. "I find it quite… er… empowering! Yes, empowering. Now, that's a word that the twenty-first century loves to throw about."

"Buford, what are you doing?" Donna shouted, in her only-Donna brand of total exasperation. "Aren't you a citizen, a native of this planet? Don't you care about what happens to it?"

"I have been shown the future, Ms. Noble," he said, rather calmly. "And I don't care to contribute to delinquency of my planet. You lot, you twenty-first-century types, you've got too much power, too fast. Too much AI, too much knowledge right at your fingertips…"

"Too much? And who exactly told you it was _too much_?" Donna wondered. "Surely you didn't come to that conclusion on your own."

"Like I said, I've been _shown_ the future," he answered. "I've seen the chaos the human race causes. I've seen it with my own eyes. The torture, the mayhem…"

"I still don't think you came to this conclusion on your own," Donna said. "So, someone showed you a barren battlefield, or a wasteland, or whatever, and said it was because of the human race? And you just _believed_ them?"

"The progression of common technologies that you people carry around right now, to interplanetary holocaust, is logical. One need only be explained…"

"Okay," Martha chirped. "Let's talk about holocaust for a sec. If you push that button, do you know what's about to happen to this city? This planet? Yeah, I mean, we'll never branch out and become destroyers of the universe, as you seem to think, but… 1938, Buford. You know what happens in the years following!"

"Yes, the Doctor has illustrated quite a colourful picture of what Hitler might do to the world, without London to stand as citadel," Buford sighed.

"And you don't believe him? Don't you remember the Blitz?"

Greene shrugged. "Maybe we'll get lucky and the time capsule will flatten Germany as well."

Martha couldn't help but laugh. "What? _Maybe we'll get lucky?_ Are you serious?"

"It could happen."

"From what I understand, the damage will extend as far as Northern France, and only because the impact will cause the Channel to flood it. Yet another bastion of humanity that cannot afford to be weakened when the Axis attacks. Britain has no government, no effective military, D-Day cannot happen, the Americans can't free Paris on their own, especially not without a way to _land_ on Europe, and one-by-one, we all fall down!"

Donna chimed in. "And it will be _your fault_ , do you understand that? If you press that button, you have doomed humanity! It won't even be a question of the higher-ups – the Time Lords or the Heimats or whoever they are… it's on _you_. _You_ have the button. _You_ hold this planet's survival, literally, in the palm of your hand!"

"The Doctor has explained all this to me, in his annoying, haughty, Time Lord way. And I've made my choice. Yes, I'm a bit frightened of the future, but…"

"Are you stupid, or just heartless?" Donna asked, loudly.

"I guess you could say _heartless_ , Ms. Noble, as the heart God gave me never worked properly. I'm just trying to survive."

"At the cost of… _everything?_ Everyone?" Martha asked.

"Yes," he said. "I'm not you. I never took a vow of _first do no harm_ , Dr. Jones."

"Neither did I," Donna reminded him. "And yet, my life isn't a long, meaningless, wasteful hindrance."

"You say my life is a meaningless hindrance, do you?" he asked, raising his voice for the first time, and actually taking a step toward Donna.

She, however, did not move from her spot. "Don't forget _wasteful,_ " she shot back. "I said that, too."

Buford growled at her, "That's where you are wrong. My life was meaningless before. I was a waste of space before. Now, I'm making my mark on the world – on the universe. I'm doing good…"

"You're doing good only for yourself," Martha said. "And not even for yourself! You'll have to live through the Nazi apocalypse just like everyone else!"

He laughed. "Nazi Apocalypse. Sounds like a video game. Speaking of meaningless endeavours…"

"Buford! Listen to yourself!" Martha cried out.

His eyes widened in anger at her. "I shall have _eternal_ life! I am the Eternity Agent!"

"We'll see how you feel about eternal life, and being the bloody Eternity Agent, looking at yourself in the mirror each day, _forever,_ knowing what you've done!" Martha retorted.

"Listen, Buford," Donna said, now taking a step toward him, in turn. "Martha, she doesn't understand feeling useless. She's never had a useless day in her life. In fact, she even walked across this great planet of ours once, to save it from a… well, I don't fully understand the story, but she saved the world."

"Congratulations, Dr. Jones," Greene said to Martha. "So sorry you'll not be able to do it a second time."

Donna ignored him. "But even before that, she came from an amazing, resourceful, loving family, and she always had encouragement, growing up. She and her siblings and cousins, they were always told how _smart_ they are, how beautiful and good, and how their kindness and ingenuity could be far-reaching. Their lives were worth more than allowing someone to run roughshod over them – even someone like the Doctor.

"But not me," she continued. "I mean, I know my mother loves me, but her view of me was always… less-than. Or, at least, that's what her treatment of me tells me. My dad and granddad helped mitigate that a bit, but they were never around when I was little, and my dad is gone now. Granddad has his own problems with her these days. Anyway, I think... my mum has been trying all my life to help me by belittling me, and it just… it's just made me feel, as you say, useless."

"Are you saying that my trying to help this planet by belittling it, is just like what your mother has done to you?" asked Greene, with mock-sympathy.

"No, you complete arse," Donna snapped. "I'm saying that on some level, that is all my own, I understand how you must've felt, at forty-ish, with no wife, no kids, no great career, no prospects, feeling like you'll never amount to anything. I mean, I can't say I know what it feels like to face possible sudden death every day, but the point is, either way, I found meaning. By doing good. By looking at the big-picture. By looking beyond my own life."

"Let me guess," Greene lilted. "You found the Doctor."

"Well, he found me, but… yes," Donna said. "I like to think he's the Patron Saint of people like us, Buford. Martha likes to say he changed her life, and he has. In quite a few ways. But honestly, I think she's done more good for him, than vice versa.

"But you and me," Donna went on. "The Doctor _really_ thinks and acts and travels and does his Doctor-thing for _us_. He's talked to you. He's tried to show you. He's touched your life, whether you want to admit it or not, and yet, here you are, choosing the other path! You're out for yourself! You're making a _negative_ difference. You're subtracting from the existence and vibrancy of this planet, not adding to it. And actually, if you had your way, you'd cause things to stay literally the same… forever. You'd not have the Nazi Apocalypse, you'd have just seventy years of Earth as we know it, over and over again! So now, you're less than useless. And your life really is just one, long, boring, meaningless, wasteful, selfish, _hindrance."_

He stared at Donna with contempt and surprise.

Martha looked back and forth between them, unsure of who would speak or act next.

"Well," Buford said quietly, turning back to the window. "Maybe the Doctor can intervene with Hitler, and prevent the war altogether, eh? Give England and Northern France a chance to rebuild. If he had any _real_ sense of meaning, that's what he would do."

" _That_ is what you think the Doctor should do?" Donna asked, incredulous.

Then Greene turned away from the window, and began to walk toward the conference room door. "Yes. And then he would turn over the instructions for containing 1938 once more in a capsule, so that we can save the universe from the ignorance of the human race."

Martha and Donna looked at each other in disbelief, and then followed him through the door, to the top of the staircase.

"You are possibly the most stubborn being I've ever met, save for the Doctor himself, do you know that Mr. Greene?" Martha asked.

"Please leave," he said, bounding down the stairs to the landing.

"Not until you give us that detonator," she said.

He stopped on the landing, and took the device from his pocket and examined it. Then he checked his pocket watch.

He turned and walked back up the stairs toward Martha, and held it out to her. And just before she took it, he pressed the button, before putting it in her hand.

* * *

The Doctor had one hand contemplatively resting on one of the columns, in the basement of the building.

"Sorry, Doctor, did you say, your people built this building?" Colin asked.

"Hmm?" the Doctor said, inhaling hard. Then, "Oh, yeah… I mean, it's possible. Mind you, if the Time Lords and the Heimat Squad need an Eternity Agent, and they're going to use a human, then they'd need a way to keep him alive for, well, eternity. And if you're going to set up this sort of thing on Earth, you need a front, like a business. So, they built an office building… just large enough to employ a dozen people or so and to be…"

"What?" Colin asked, when the Doctor didn't say anything for about a minute, preferring to walk about the room, examining and ruminating.

"And be regulable from far away."

"Regulable how?"

"Well, to keep someone alive who shouldn't rightfully be kept alive, you'd have to manipulate time. And a space this size, the Time Lords could have done it from a cubicle in the basement of the Citadel. Oh, I had it all wrong! This building isn't a talisman at all. It's an annex!"

"An annex of what?"

"Of Gallifrey," the Doctor said, looking at Colin with a certain mania in his eyes. "My planet. The doors to the outside act as dimensional portals, just the way the door to my TARDIS does. This building is a little piece of my planet. I mean, there's nothing homey about it – except these columns. It's just atmosphere. And it's all been dressed up to look like an office on Earth."

"We're on _another planet_ right now?" Colin asked, panicking a bit.

"Not as such," the Doctor said. "Just an annex. A little pod that contains, as I said, atmosphere. It's in a different dimension…"

"Doctor!" they heard from the top of the stairs. It was Martha's voice sounding frantic.

"Martha! Did you find a detonator?" He and Colin both ran for the stairs.

"Yes, and the button has already been pushed!"

"What? Are you sure?"

"Look," she said, and she held it up for him to see. Even from the bottom of the stairs, he could perceive an ominous red light flashing.

"How did that happen?" he asked, rushing up the steps, with Colin in tow.

She lowered her eyes to the floor. "I told Buford we weren't going to back off without the remote detonator, so he pushed the button and handed it to me."

"Buford? He's here?" the Doctor asked. "Why isn't he out on that corner, watching his glorious pet project come to fruition?"

"Never mind that," Donna interjected. "How come it's not 1938?"

"Maybe it is," Martha suggested, darkly, after a long pause.

"Then how come I didn't feel anything?" the Doctor wondered.

He dashed through the basement door and found himself in the hallway. Martha was the first to stumble through the door after him.

As he made an intentional beeline in the direction of the staircase, she said, "Doctor, wait! He knows you're here."

He stopped and turned toward her, just as Colin and Donna caught up. "What? How?"

"He said…" Martha paused and groaned with the weirdness and urgency of it all. "I dunno… something like, the air in the building changes, when you walk in. The building can feel you, and is disturbed when you're here."

Donna added, "He said, the atmosphere here vibrates differently than normal, when you're in the building."

The Doctor stood quite still for a few seconds and said, "Actually, that might make a kind of sense, given... except I don't feel anything, vibrations or otherwise."

"He said that you have to be _in the building_ when a Time Lord enters it, in order to feel the difference," Donna said. "You and Martha and I didn't feel it because we all came in at basically the same time."

"I might have felt it," Colin said. "A minute or so before the Doctor came down the stairs, I felt a change in the air around me. I suddenly felt nervous and paranoid, like maybe I was being watched, but not. I definitely felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on-end, but once the Doctor came downstairs, I forgot about it, and got involved in whatever we were doing."

"You didn't forget, you acclimated," the Doctor said.

"Well, whatever. I'm not saying it wasn't just good old-fashioned chills, or a sixth sense or something kicking in… just trying to contribute something," Colin explained with a shrug.

"Given what we saw in the basement…"

"What did you see in the basement?" Donna interrupted.

"Columns," Colin told her. "Just like the ones in the Doctor's ship. And a foundation so terribly put-together, the building should be collapsing, yet, here it is."

"This building is an annex, probably of Gallifrey," the Doctor said.

"What?" Martha shouted.

He shushed her, reminding her that Buford Greene might be able to hear them. Then he said to her, "The Time Lords might have thought they could control things that way, especially Buford. So, given that, I have no problem believing that the air in this building is altered with me in it. But it shouldn't make you feel uneasy – it should be a completion, of sorts. A neutralisation of improperly ionised air. It _should_ feel more comfortable."

"Well, that's not what I felt," Colin said.

"And that's not what Buford Greene said," Martha told him.

"Then what's causing it, eh?" he asked. "Come on."

He took Martha by the hand and the four of them went toward the stairs. Along the way, they didn't see Buford S. Greene anywhere.

But what the Doctor seemed to want was a view out the window. He and Martha approached the same glass outlook through which Greene had been peering, just a few minutes before.

"Holy God," Colin breathed, coming up behind them.

Donna made a high-pitched sound that the Doctor had only heard her make once before, at her wedding reception, just before she burst into fake tears. But when he turned to her now, he could see that there was nothing fake in her sobbing. Colin pulled her in, and she shed tight, grief-stricken tears all over the lapel of his tweed coat.

The Doctor patted her back sorrowfully, and he and Martha turned back to the city scene before them, and they embraced, as both felt tears burning their eyes as well. The city of London was in ruins around them. They could clearly see a trajectory of damage in all directions, as a blast had come from a particular "ground zero" in the middle of a firework-like pattern. The water of the Thames had been blasted out of its cradle, and all that remained was a muddy, blackish-brown ditch that ran through a devastated city.

"Could anyone survive this?" Martha asked.

"Oh, yes, plenty of people will have survived, though they'll be injured," the Doctor said. "Plenty will not survive at all."

"Whitehall, Parliament, Downing Street," she whispered, amid Donna's continued sobs. "The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's…"

"Ssshh," he told her, stroking her head. He whispered back, "That does no good, Martha."

"They're gone," she whispered. "All of them."

"I know."

* * *

 **A somber chapter ending, eh?**

 **Don't forget to leave a review, and hey, thanks for reading!**


	27. Chapter 27

**If, at the end of the previous chapter, you were saying, "Oh, shit. What now?" then you are well within your rights! Enjoy!**

* * *

TWENTY-SEVEN

Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Colin Brownhill, and the Doctor all sat at the large conference table in the glassed-in room on the second floor of an office building, just outside London.

Of course, at this moment, London was just outside London.

They had, five minutes before, looked out the window and seen the impact of a tightly-wound capsule of time unleashed. 2008 had been stamped out, for the moment, by 1938, and the impact had flattened the city. It had happened just as the Doctor had predicted, and no-one had been able to stop it. Though, not for lack of trying.

And now, what lay ahead for London, all of Britain, in fact, not to mention Europe, and most of the West… it was horrific. Ethnic cleansing, paranoia, struggle, violence, famine, ruins, general disregard for human life… This was what the Doctor had predicted as well, and no-one in the room had any reason to believe that this "Nazi Apocalypse," as they had come to think of it, would not come to fruition.

All of them stared at their hands in their laps, trying to make sense of it.

"Why didn't we feel it?" asked Donna, breaking a truly oppressive silence.

"This building is insulated from it," the Doctor answered.

"How's that?" Colin asked, solemnly, ever the architect.

"It's in another dimension, remember? It's an annex of Gallifreyan atmosphere. It's basically out-of-reach of rubbish like this."

"Well, isn't there something we can do?" Donna asked.

"Probably," the Doctor shrugged. "It just hasn't come to me yet."

"Can't we just go back in time, and like, stop this whole thing?" she practically whined.

"Like, how?" Martha asked, incredulous.

"Like… if there were a way to pinpoint the date when Greene was approached by Time Lords, or whoever from the Whozit Squad…"

"The Heimat Squad?" the Doctor asked.

"…then we could stop him from agreeing to do it, and we could head the Time Lords and the Heimats off at the pass!"

"What do you think this is, _Back to the Future?"_ the Doctor asked.

"Well, I don't know! Why _couldn't_ we do it?"

"It's dodgy doing stuff like that, Donna, I thought you'd have learnt that by now," the Doctor sighed.

"Don't you dismiss me like that, like I'm some tedious preteen!"

"I'm not dismissing you," he said. "I'm just very, very tired."

"Doctor, I've seen you break the laws of your people seventeen ways from Sunday," Donna protested. "We're talking about the fate of the Earth! Isn't it worth whatever risk?"

"Donna, I know I meddle all the time, but… ugh, going back in time with the actual intention of changing history, stopping a thing from happening…"

"Marty McFly style?" she asked.

"Yeah..."

"Well?"

"Have I ever told you about the time when Rose saved her father from a speeding car?" he asked her.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Donna shouted.

"Look, it's just not what time travel is for!" he shouted back.

"Then what is it bloody for?" she practically shrieked, getting to her feet, staring him down.

"Donna," Colin said, taking her hand. "Why don't you sit down? I'll get you some water."

"I don't want water," she spat. "I want answers. From you, Doctor. You talk a good game about saving this planet and loving humanity, but when it comes right down to it…"

"Donna, don't finish that sentence," Martha said firmly, but without anger. "You know you'll regret it later."

"Of course _you_ would defend him," Donna whined, knowing even then that she was being juvenile. She began to wander around the room, arms folded over her chest, trying not to scream, or weep.

"Look, even if I wanted to do what you're saying, I couldn't. Not because of some Time Lord gut-level code-of-ethics, which is, I will admit, something that does weigh formidably upon my actions," he said, contemplatively. "But because the Time Lords would need to be stopped. If we interfere with Buford, they'll just find another miserable human being to do their bidding, and then we'll be in this jam all over again. If we used time-travel to fix this, I would have to intervene with the Time Lords directly, and that can't be done because they're in a time lock."

"They're in a time lock?" Martha asked.

"Mm-hm," the Doctor confirmed. "The whole planet. Its existence is inaccessible via time, via space."

"Then how is _this_ place accessible?" Martha wondered. "I mean, if the entire history of he planet Gallifrey is shut away in some sort of – pardon the use of the word – _capsule_ , then how are people just walking in and out of this building all the time?"

The Doctor stared at her with wide, incredulous eyes, and it was a look that betrayed wheels turning in his brain. "Oh my," he said, barely breathing.

"What?"

"How are people just walking in and out of this building all the time?" he asked, repeating her question. "How indeed, Dr. Jones?"

"Are you seriously asking me? No, no… you can't be asking me…" she stuttered.

"Well, the answer is because there are at least two doors to the outside, that have polarized and specially-calibrated compression fields, just like the TARDIS, so that no-one realizes they've shifted into another dimension. And since this building isn't actually _on_ Gallifrey, it's accessible. It's here. It's on Earth. It's got doors. But the interior. The interior…"

He dashed out of the room, and into the office area. The three left in the conference room could see him through the glass walls, but they followed him anyway.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Colin wondered.

The Doctor picked up a mug of coffee from one of the desks. The mug was a heated, battery-operated travel tumbler that had the company's name and logo on it. He took a drink from it. He seemed to burn his tongue.

"You couldn't just _feel_ the steam coming off it?" Martha asked, a bit exasperated.

"You're missing the point, Martha. It's still piping hot," he said. "Donna, how long would you say it's been since the suits left?"

"I don't know," she said. "A half hour?"

"Taste this," he said.

"I hate coffee," she said. "I'll take your word for it: it's hot. But it's a heated tumbler, Doctor."

"The heating mechanism is turned off."

"Oh," she said, flatly, reaching out for the mug. She touched her upper lip to the surface of the coffee and winced.

"A bit hot for having sat there for a half-hour with no heating mechanism, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she conceded.

The Doctor then went behind a solid wall and disappeared, and it surprised everyone except Colin.

"Blimey, I thought all the walls in this place were glass," Donna muttered.

They followed him, and found themselves in the office's kitchen. The Doctor opened the fridge door. "Look at this," he said, handing Martha a small container of milk. He then handed her a carton of cottage cheese and a still-sealed yoghurt. "And this, and this. What are the expiry dates?"

She examined what was in her hands. "There aren't any."

"Right," he said, sauntering up close to her. "Someone has rubbed them off. Look."

He indicated a place where it seemed, indeed, that something had been scraped away.

"Why would anyone do that?" she asked.

He took all of the dairy products from her and replaced them in the fridge, and then the top half of him seemed to disappear inside the white box. When he came back out, he was holding a brown paper sack. "Jackpot," he said. "Someone forgot to get rid of this… twice." He showed his companions the label, written in blue marker, that said 'Tamsin's lunch – 16/11/07 – do not touch.'

"Whoa, it's been in there eight months?" Colin said, wincing.

"Yes, but I'd wager…" the Doctor began. And with that, he stuck his hand into the bag, and pulled out an egg salad sandwich, inside a small plastic zipper bag. He opened it, and took a large bite of the sandwich, much to the disgusted groans of all three of his friends.

"See?" he said, chewing. "It's fine."

Then he plunged his hand inside the bag again, and came up with a little cardboard container of milk. He waggled it at them delightedly, opened it, and took a big swig.

"Oh my God," Martha said, in revolted exasperation. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Don't you get it?" he asked. "The expiry date on this milk is 23 November, 2007, which is eight months ago, and yet, it tastes fresh."

Martha, Donna and Colin all exchanged looks. They now understood that something _time-related_ was very weird in this building, but they hadn't caught up to the Doctor yet, of course.

The Doctor didn't wait around for them. He flew back into the office area and pulled the sonic screwdriver from his inside breast pocket. He aimed it at the nearest computer, and the device made a high-pitched sound that indicated something definitely amiss.

"Whoa," he said, and he sat down, and started clicking about. He hacked somehow onto a page of gibberish symbols that seemed to be floating by on the screen. "This machine has been rigged to move forward."

"Rigged to move forward?" Donna asked. "That makes no sense."

"It's been rigged to… well, mimic the passage of time," the Doctor said, leaning back, watching the storm of symbols. "The computer doesn't _want_ to work on a linear basis – it's confused. Someone, probably the Heimat Squad, has hacked in and forced it behave like other computers on Earth. It's like a really aggressive software override that has the hardware going against its computer-y instincts."

He stood and moved again, pulling a face clock off the wall. He looked at the back, and said, "Runs on batteries. Is not wired into the walls."

"Doctor, you're going to have to start getting specific real soon," Donna said. "We're all really impressed with this enigmatic _time-is-wonky_ thing you're doing here, but frankly, it's getting old."

"You don't see it?"

"No!" the three of them shouted at once.

"This is an annex of Gallifrey. Gallifrey is in a time lock. But this building isn't _on_ Gallifrey, it's just connected to it. Which means it's accessible, but _time has stopped_. Foods don't spoil, coffee doesn't get cold, the computers are confused, clocks have to be independent of the inner-workings of the building, if they're going to keep time. It didn't even feel the impact of 1938. The building is unaffected by time. Nothing is moving forward here, because nothing is moving forward on Gallifrey."

"Whoa," Colin breathed. There was a pause, and then he looked at Martha and said, "Is your life always like this?"

"With him, yeah," she answered, a bit absently.

"The Time Lords set up this annex because they reckoned it would be easy to control from here, most specifically, the projected long, long life of Buford S. Greene, everyone's favourite Eternity Agent. There would be myriad ways for them to do that, the easiest of which would be simply to douse him with regenerative energy every now and then, and let him keep on ticking. Piece of cake," he said. "But… then, the Time War happened, and everything went to hell, and now Gallifrey is gone, and its existence is in a time lock. So now, time has stopped here, and things work very differently."

"Buford said he has to spend three times as much time in this building as outside of it, in order to maintain his eternal life," Donna said.

The Doctor shook his head. "He won't have eternal life now. Not unless he never leaves the building. With the three-times-as-much-time policy, he'll merely have a life that's four times longer than a human's should rightly be. He'll live, I predict, to age three-hundred or so. He _must've_ done the math on that! How could he not know that?"

"He said he's been cured of Bradycardia," Martha said. "He said he was a ticking time-bomb in his 'real' life, but he's cleared of all that, now that he's eternal. Maybe he thinks as long as he's been magically freed of his heart condition, he's magically freed from mortality."

"What kind of sense does that make?" the Doctor asked her, a bit dismissively.

"What kind of sense does _any of this_ make?" Colin pointed out.

"So he goes through the fridge and rubs the expiry dates off of stuff so that no-one notices that the milk doesn't curdle and the strawberries don't mould," Donna mused.

"And they have those heated tumblers as 'gifts' to all the employees, so they don't notice their coffee and tea doesn't cool," Martha added.

Colin sighed. "And I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'd bet that if you look at the employee roster, no-one works here for longer than about five years," he said.

The Doctor nodded. "I reckon you're right. People spend roughly a third of their lives at work. Five years would be about as long as they could go without people noticing that they aren't ageing at the same rate as their other friends."

"Nine years, at the most," Donna said. "Definitely before you hit the decade mark."

"This is _mental_ ," Colin commented.

"But," the Doctor said, mysteriously. "You lot, you're still missing the big picture."

"Tell us about the big picture, then," Martha said, starting to get aggravated at the _enigmatic_ routine. Clearly the Doctor was jazzed-up about something, but when he was light-years ahead of everyone else, and just wouldn't _spill it_ … it was annoying.

"The big picture is, I'm a great big walking time-disaster," he said. "I'm a Time Lord, it's in my guts, in my blood. I travel around and muck things up. And in this place, I disturb the air."

"Oh!" Donna said, jumping up. "I see! Time has stopped here, and it doesn't want to move forward, so when you're in the building, it's like the air here is agitated!"

"Yep," he said. "When time is contained, and set to do something specific, and you give it a sloppy dose of _me_ , things get weird."

He said this in such a way that anyone with eyes and ears could tell that he was trying to emphasise the importance of something. Again, the three companions exchanged looks. They could _kind of_ see where he was going with this, but as non-Time-Lords, it was nigh on impossible to connect the dots.

But Martha came close. "So, we do what? Shove you into the time capsule and confuse it? Wouldn't that just make things worse?"

"Yes! And no, it wouldn't make things worse," he said. "Remember when we talked about the slow leak?"

"Yeah," Martha said. "The slow leak actually sounded a bit worse than having 1938 explode all over the place."

"In theory, if I can channel that explosion _through_ myself, two things could happen. One, I might – small amount of _might_ – be able to control it. It would hurt, but I could do it. Two, the time energy would, as you said, get confused about what its supposed to do. It would sort of… grab onto me, consider me, get sidetracked by me, before eventually realising what it was meant to do, and vent. That way, 1938 imposes itself upon 2008 at a _reasonable_ speed."

"And that solves our problem?" asked Colin.

"It prevents London from getting levelled to the ground even _before_ the Nazis can get their hands on it, so yeah. History carries forward the way we know it should," the Doctor said, even now looking a little worried. "Blitz, allies, atomic bomb, V.E. Day."

"Oh, yay," Colin said, under his breath.

"But…" Donna sputtered, gesturing in the direction of the window they'd been looking through, at the ruins of their capitol city. "It's too late. Isn't it?"

The Doctor began to walk swiftly toward the front of the building, where the conference room was, and the staircase. He went down the stairs, and as he did so, he explained, "I might – again, small amount of _might_ – be able to get back to _our_ version of 2008, if we're very, very careful."

"Really?" Martha asked. "They've not created a new timestream or something?"

He was still moving down the hall as fast as his long, thin legs could carry him. He stopped at the side door of the building and looked through the glass at the TARDIS. His voice dropped to a whisper. "It has. But it's only been a few minutes. Where we are, the effects haven't settled in… the long-term damage has not been hinted at. The four of us, cloistered here inside this annex, closed-off from the rest of reality… well, in here, it's still 2008, in a manner of speaking. It's _our_ 2008\. The seal hasn't been broken."

"That doesn't sound right," Martha mused. "I mean… sorry, what do I know? I'm not a Time Lord."

"It doesn't sound right because it's extremely tenuous," the Doctor admitted, muttering almost to himself. "But it _could_ work, if we summon the TARDIS, rather than going out to it."

"Okay, Doctor, but what's to stop General Kir from starting this whole all over again, if we set things right?" Donna asked.

"And kidnapping us both, and doing… God knows what, to make you comply?" Martha asked, voice harried and high.

"What's to stop him?" the Doctor asked. Resolutely, coldly, but quietly, he replied, "Me."

* * *

 **Reviews make the world go 'round!**

 **Well, not really, but they make me very, very happy! Let me know your thoughts. :-) Thank you for reading!**


	28. Chapter 28

**So, in the little building in the 'burbs, time is standing still! And the Doctor's presence confuses that stillness directive... when time is "set" to do something specific and you add a big dose of chaotic time energy (like, say, a time-traveller), then things get weird!**

 **And while we're on the subject of time standing still, because of this bizarre quality, if they summon the TARDIS inside the building, they _might_ be able to get back to "their" original version of 2008, where there's been no flattening of London in 1938. **

**Cross your fingers, my friends. And enjoy!**

* * *

TWENTY-EIGHT

The TARDIS materialised around them, right there in the hallway of Buford S. Greene's annexed office building.

"Whoa," Colin breathed, finding himself suddenly standing a foot from the console. He looked around, again. "I can't believe this. I mean, I still cannot believe this thing."

"Okay, kids," the Doctor announced. "We've only got one shot at this. If we misfire, reality transforms, 2008 becomes the future of what Kir and the Time Lords orchestrated, and we're buggered."

"If _finding_ an untouched 2008 works at all. Right?" asked Donna.

"Right," he confirmed, a little irritatedly. "But hey, how about a little faith?"

"All right, I believe in you, Doctor," she said, rolling her eyes.

"That's better," he said to her with a smirk.

"Now, run it by us again," Martha said. "You're going to literally _throw yourself_ into the portal between Earl's Court Road and 1938 jammed into a barrel."

"Yes," he said, turning to face her.

"And time energy from 1938 that's supposed to explode will filter through you instead?"

"Filter through me, maybe," he nodded. "More likely it will swarm around me as an enigmatic time event…"

"And this is safe?" she interrupted.

He chuckled. "Is anything?"

"Doctor, be straight with me," she said, her voice stern, hard. "What are the risks here? I saw what happened in 1938 when you stood on that spot. And all you did was stand there."

"Wait, what happened?" Donna asked.

"He stood on the corner, at the exact point where the time capsule was buried, he got overwhelmed and he vomited into the gutter."

"Doctor!" Donna said, scolding him like an auntie. "How could you consider this? If it mucked up your guts when you just stood there on the pavement, what happens when the thing opens, and all that time stuff actually _gets_ you?"

"Listen, I'm a Time Lord," he sighed. "Time energy is what I do. It's what I am."

"You didn't answer the question," Donna pointed out.

"Could this kill you?" Martha asked, eyes wide.

"Martha…"

"Could it?" she shouted.

He sighed, and admitted. "It could."

"Will it?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Fifty fifty?"

"Yeah, or thereabouts."

She groaned, and threw herself onto the lone seat in the room. "So, then… what are we supposed to do, if it does kill you?"

"It probably won't," he tried to assure her.

"You just said fifty-fifty!"

"Well… sixty-forty," he said. "Sixty in our favour."

"You'll excuse me if I'm not comforted by that," she snapped back.

"She's not wrong, Mr. Evasive," Donna said. "If you die, what happens then? Will you regenerate?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" she hollered back at him. "Well, there's a bloody reassurance – thanks for that!"

"Donna…"

"Seriously," Colin cut in. He surprised everyone enough that they stopped and stared. "Doctor, I don't know you well, obviously, but from what I've seen, from what Donna has told me, I don't understand how you can be so blasé about giving your life. Or even _possibly_ giving your life."

"He does this all the damn time," Donna informed him, exasperated.

"Why?" Colin asked him, earnestly. "Because, I don't know if this planet can do without you."

"You don't, eh?" the Doctor asked, rather quietly.

"Well… I mean, without you, this time-capsule thing would've just _happened_ , and we'd be stuck in the Nazi apocalypse, _on a loop_ , mind you, and our lives would be hell, and we'd be none the wiser," Colin said, rather logically. He turned to Martha for confirmation, "Am I right?"

"You're right," she said, never taking her eyes off the Doctor, who was now not making eye-contact with anyone.

"And according to Donna, this isn't even the most intense thing you lot have been through together," he said, almost laughing. "Even if you save us now, what's to happen the next time some alien race decides to teach us naughty humans a lesson?"

"What's to happen, Doctor, when they realise you're dead?" Martha asked, jumping off the stool, and crossing to him. "We're all sitting ducks, and so is every other innocent species in the universe, and you know it."

He pulled his hand down over his face in a harried, buggered gesture. "I don't know," he said, flatly.

"Doctor," she said, quietly, her voice breaking. "What's to happen to _me,_ when _I_ realise you're dead? Eh? Do you think I could _ever_ just… _recover_ from something like that? Find someone else, move on with my life?"

"Oh, Martha…"

"Never, Doctor," she insisted. "Never _ever_ would I get over that. And it's unlikely I could forgive you."

He sighed, and then looked at her with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry, but don't have any other ideas, Martha," he said. "This is all I have. I have _me_."

She whispered, as tears threatened to fall, "You're all I have, too."

"That's not true," he said, as his own sadness began to break as well. "Tell me that's not true."

"I only have one life," she told him. "And only one love."

He bent his head toward hers, and for a moment, they just stood, forehead-to-forehead, despairing.

"It's the planet, Martha."

"I know," she murmured, with a resigned sigh. "I know."

It was an acknowledgement of what he had just said: this was the only plan there was. The Doctor was the Doctor, and he had to do what he had to do. Which was, as usual, take a huge mortal risk, to save the helpless from the hellbent.

After several moments of this intensity, permeating the console room of the TARDIS, Donna broke the silence. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but… Doctor, how long will we be able to access _our_ version of 2008 from here?"

He seemed to come to. "Not long, so we have to act fast," he said, moving round the console suddenly. He began pressing buttons and adjusting things. Martha could see that he was setting coordinates of some sort.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Glad you asked! Now listen, all three of you, pay attention," he chirped, having seemingly completely shaken off the heaviness of a few moments ago. "Do you see this lever here? Martha, Donna, you've seen me throw this thing a hundred times, and you know what it does."

"Sets the TARDIS in motion," Donna said. "Moves us from point A to point B."

" _Exactamundo,_ " the Doctor said. "And both of you, in the last few days, have successfully moved this old girl on your own, so none of this should come as a shock, or seem difficult, yeah? Now, if all goes well, I'm going to fall through the portal from 2008 into 1938. Hopefully, at that point, 2008 will begin to transform into 1938, fast enough that people will barely notice it, and slowly enough that it won't take out a bunch of city blocks. And, all the pesky time-trusses will have disappeared and life will be normal there… all I will need is a way out."

"Time won't transform _around_ the TARDIS?" Martha asked. "You actually need us to come and get you?"

"I can't be sure. The last time something like this happened, the TARDIS got swept into the vortex and pressed up against a atemporal wall, as time matter proliferated. So, that means, once I'm out of the TARDIS, turn this dial here all the way to the right, which will switch off the vortex-hopper mode, then throw this lever into place. That should bring you to Earl's Court just around the corner from Bolton Gardens, first January, 1938, at five in the morning. I should be along sometime over the course of that day – don't know when. If I'm not there already. From there, we can pack up and move on."

"Why not just land us right on the corner? Too much time debris, or something?" Donna wanted to know.

"No, it's because Martha and I were there, on that corner, on that day, just a bit ago," he said. "And I don't want 'us' to see the TARDIS sitting there."

"Oh!" Martha exclaimed.

"And since I don't know what time I'll be falling through the portal, I don't know what time to park you there, and I don't know if we'll be crossing our own timelines or not…"

"Okay, okay," Donna dismissed. "Just asking. Blimey, when will I learn?"

"All right, now, tell us one more time," Colin said, closing his eyes tightly. "This will work because you are… a _chaotic time event?_ Do I understand that correctly?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "I'm a time-traveller. I'm an anomaly. I will, in a manner of speaking, _confuse_ the explosion, if we can hit it just right."

"And there's a chance that the _time energy_ will channel through you, and you'll be able to control the release of 1938, and have it overtake 2008 at a safe rate?"

"Yes, a small chance," the Doctor answered. "But what will probably happen is that I will _distract_ the energy being released. It will focus on me, adhere to me, churn a bit, then get released into 2008. This will also be a relatively safe speed. Mind you, a small blast might occur over a block or two, but nothing that the city can't repair."

"Doctor, do you even know how big the opening is? Is it a literal opening, even?" Donna wondered aloud. "I mean, you're a skinny guy, but what if it's like a shoebox?"

"Even if all I can fit in there is my foot or my head, or two of my fingers, the effect will be the same."

"And Buford Greene's minions?" she asked. "They'll be standing about. What'll you do when they grab you and pull you out?"

"Blimey," he sighed. "One thing at a time, yeah?"

"And we… do what now?" Colin asked.

"Well, hold onto something, for a start," the Doctor said.

* * *

While the Doctor readied the TARDIS to fly into the vortex, and do what he described as "hopping" sort of sideways, trying to find a particular timestream, Martha's mind began to race.

She could not help but let her thoughts drift back to a few minutes ago when she and the Doctor had their moment of angst, during which she _knew_ without a doubt, that if the Doctor died today, it would destroy her. She would have her job, her family, the life she'd had before he'd come into it, but it would never be the same again. Her heart would never be the same. Her body and soul would carry his imprint forever, and would always feel empty and longing…

There was really very little reason to think that today was unlike any other time when he had put his life on the line to save the Earth, which she had seen him do dozens of times, and yet…

It _was_ different, because _they_ were different. She had always loved him, but back in the old days with the Judoon, and the Carrionites and the Daleks, she didn't _have_ him. Now, in him, she had everything to lose. She knew full well it was selfish of her to try and manipulate him into hanging back for her sake, but she hadn't been able to help it. When he said it was fifty-fifty he might die, every fibre of her being was suddenly in panic.

 _Never ever would I get over it,_ she had said to him.

 _Especially if I thought there was something I could have done about it,_ she now said to herself.

He had explained to Colin, "I'm a time-traveller. I'm an anomaly. I will, in a manner of speaking, _confuse_ the explosion, if we can hit it just right… what will probably happen is that I will _distract_ the energy being released."

 _I'm a time-traveller, too_ , she said. _I'm an anomaly, as well. This was proven in Mallorca, all those weeks ago, when the alien homed in on me and my time-anomalous family._

She stood and watched him do his graceful solo waltz round the console, and admired, once again, the way he moved. This was his element. He was a powder-keg of energy and passion when he was here at the console with a problem to solve. The sight made her heart race, even more than it had a week ago in her flat, when she sat and watched him putter around the kitchen in his perfectly-tailored suit, and his purposefully-mussed hair. He looked like just a man – well, a really cracking handsome, charismatic, enigmatic man, but a man all the same. But he was so much more. Behind those eyes, there were entire worlds that he'd seen, saved, destroyed, explored, deplored… and behind that closely buttoned-up coat there beat two hearts. And somewhere inside, all of time and space burned, ready for him to see, feel, wield, and make bend to his will.

And with this, she realised that she had a lot less chance of survival than he did. A hell of a lot less. But with him gone, the Earth would have _zero_ chance of survival in the long-run. Not to mention, the horror of facing the universe at large, un-policed by the Doctor.

And yes, he would be heartbroken just as she would, but, she reminded herself, _he_ does not have only one life. He had had ten so far, and would have how many more? He'd have millennia to get over her, and it must have occurred to him that he'd lose her someday, anyway…

Tears fell down her cheeks while she turned over all this in her mind.

She had to play this close to her chest. She had to be watchful, and quick.

 _Keep it together, Martha. For everyone's sake._

* * *

"And a-hoppin' we go!" the Doctor exclaimed, as the TARDIS lurched, and everyone grabbed on for dear life.

The ride was bumpier than usual, because, as the Doctor explained, they were not flying through the vortex as they normally did, but rather, going "sideways," looking for a particular _version_ of 2008.

After ten seconds or so, the TARDIS' trajectory changed direction, and smoothed a bit.

The Doctor let go of the controls, and the vessel seemed to be flying on some sort of auto-pilot setting. He went to the door, opened it, letting in a loud rushing noise and oscillating rays of light, moving about the console room at a million miles per hour. The Doctor held onto the door opposite and leaned out.

All three on-board with him exclaimed something expressing alarm, concern, exasperation, confusion… or all of these.

Martha was the first to grab him.

"Don't worry, I'm just looking," he told her, pulling away, so that he could use his arm to brace against the doorjamb.

"Yeah, now," she said. "What about five minutes from now?"

"Look," he said, ignoring the question, and focusing hard on something. "That little sliver of yellow – do you see it?"

Donna and Colin gathered at the door with them, and Martha peered into the churning mix of vortex below them. The speed at which they were moving was terrifying, and the energy around them was completely intangible. She dared not think of what might happen if one of them fell at the wrong moment.

"I see it," Donna called, and pointed at it with one manicured index finger. Martha saw it then, just at the same moment – a razor-thin, wafting band of yellowish-gold light, wandering through the vortex. "What is it?"

"That's _our_ version of 2008," the Doctor shouted. "It's fading away!"

"It's what? How is it fading away?" Colin asked, frantically. "How is it even… what is… wait…"

"You lot, you keep an eye on it, I'm going to try and get us in there," the Doctor instructed, moving away from the door, and back up to the console. "Hold on at all costs… but tell me how close I am."

The TARDIS began to careen toward the yellow light, and Martha, Donna, and Colin all began to scream involuntarily.

"Doctor, we passed through it!" Donna screamed. "Try again!"

The Doctor cursed, and seemed to change a few settings on the console again. The TARDIS flipped around, and they could see the yellow ribbon again. He growled in frustration. "This is going to be a bugger to catch! And we've only got a couple of minutes before…"

He tried again to fly the TARDIS into the slit of yellow light, with some shouted "guidance" from Donna. Again, he missed.

With a great, throaty cry, he tried again. This time, the TARDIS itself shook with nervous rage, but it worked.

"We're through!" she shouted. "We're in space!"

"We're a few hundred thousand miles from Earth," the Doctor said, examining his screen. "We'll have to get to the right day and time, and teleport into London… and then get _really_ clever."

 _Indeed,_ Martha thought.

* * *

 **Thoughts?**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	29. Chapter 29

**The Doctor figured out that if he throws himself through the time-capsule portal, he can confuse it enough that it won't flatten the city. But it might kill him. :-o**

 **When we left off, Martha was thinking of doing something semi-homicidal, in order to save the Doctor from having to do it himself. Let's see what happens... ;-)**

* * *

TWENTY-NINE

The next thing any of them knew, the TARDIS was making is signature sound, the universe echoing in its heart, and the Doctor was saying, "Here we are, London, 2008, on time-capsule day. Blimey, it feels like we were just here."

"Where in London are we?" Donna asked.

"Hovering over Martha's neighbourhood," the Doctor said. "Take a look."

She opened the door carefully and looked out. "Whoa, that is creepy."

"What is?" the Doctor asked.

"It's like it's blinking in and out of existence," Donna said, her voice high and breathy… terrified. "All of London."

"And it must be volatile beyond volatile if _you_ can perceive it," he muttered.

"You mean, a lowly human?" she asked, sardonically.

"I mean _a human,_ yes," he answered.

"How are the people down there not losing their minds with fright?" asked Colin, keeping a safe distance from the door, though, still able to see the phenomenon from where he stood.

"They can't see it," the Doctor said, softly. "You three can see it because the TARDIS is surrounding you, giving you a leg-up."

There was a moment of silence, and then Colin mused, "All of London. I mean, I can see the horizon to the east. Looks like Rochester, maybe Canterbury, too."

"It's all of this planet on all of this plane," the Doctor corrected. "It's hanging by a thread. Which means, my friends, we've only got one shot at this, and we've got to do it fast. I'm going to dial up the TARDIS' perception filter so that no one will notice us hovering, but once I've fallen out, and through the capsule's portal, they'll know we're there and they might have something up their sleeves to stop us."

"So we have to turn the dial and throw the switch immediately, and come find you in 1938," Martha said, flatly. "Assuming you survive."

"Assuming the transformation to 1938 doesn't happen the way it should…" he said, trailing off, considering the consequences. Then, "And yes, assuming that I survive. Okay with that?"

"No," she said, her voice breaking, but showing hints of resolve.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

He walked around the console with purpose and grabbed her by the cheeks and neck, and locked her in an intense kiss that completely disarmed her.

When it was over, he said, never taking his hands away from her, "I'm probably coming back. But just in case."

She nodded helplessly. Her eyes spoke a million words, but did not betray what she had on her mind. "Okay. I understand."

"I love you," he said.

She gulped. "I love you, too."

One more kiss, and then he turned to his instruments and read a display. "According to the TARDIS, the time capsule was detonated at 9:38:41 a.m., local time. I have to jump into the thing as close to that moment as possible."

Martha wandered down the ramp toward the door, ostensibly just to look out at the city she'd so recently seen levelled to the ground. She was just in time to ride the open TARDIS doors over the roofs of her neighbourhood, and glide up along Earl's Court Road.

"There it is, Doctor! Stop!" she called out, just as they were approaching the corner.

She and Donna both leaned against the door, and peered down at the crowd that had gathered at the corner, waiting for the time capsule's opening. A man in a tan suit stood atop a step-stool, and addressed the hundred-or-so people, with a megaphone.

"Blimey, that's eerie," Martha breathed as she watched London fade in and fade out. It was almost translucent, and she swore she could see the vortex beyond it.

The Doctor brought the TARDIS to a standstill directly above the crowds' heads, then lowered it down until they were hovering only about twenty feet up. He then employed some rarely-used instrument to navigate to precisely the spot over the capsule, so that he could jump directly down.

"They've got the slab of concrete pulled up already," Martha observed.

"What does the mouth of the actual capsule look like? Will I fit through it?" the Doctor asked, still adjusting at the console.

"It's got, one of those old-fashioned vault doors," she told him. "Like with one of those wheels that you've got to turn with both hands."

"Well, that'll be fake," he muttered.

"It's still closed, but if I had to guess… it looks like you'll fit," she continued. "From here it seems about the size of your average sofa cushion, so you might want to keep your arms straight against you."

"So, no flailing?" he asked, with a smirk.

"Definitely not," Martha replied. She could not understand the man in the tan suit through a megaphone pressed too closely to his lips, but could hear him finish up a speech of some sort, and hear the crowd yell. Then he got down from his pedestal, leaned over and opened the mouth of the capsule with both hands. Martha found herself staring into a black void. With a gulp, she said, "It's open now."

"Okay," he said. "Good. See? The door is fake. The detonation happens when Buford presses that button. It must be a high-powered compression release, workable from… oh, maybe _that's_ why he had to stay in the annex…"

"Hush, Doctor," Donna demanded gently, though she seemed mightily nervous. "How much time have you got?"

"About ninety seconds," he said. "I'm going to take a running start. If I look out there, I might lose my nerve."

When he said that, Martha was staring down at the crowd again, and thinking about how far twenty feet could seem, when gravity's pulling you down into God-Knows-What. When she heard his words, she stepped back from the door, and resolved to do what he said – take a running start. Or at least a walking one. But she had to get to the door before him so she could beat him to the jump. In fact, she had to get to the door several seconds ahead of him, or he'd be able to stop her. Timing on this would be horribly difficult.

The four of them practically vibrated as they paced about the console room, waiting for the right moment.

Then, the TARDIS, all too soon, gave a loud beep.

"Fifteen seconds!" the Doctor shouted, as he came around the controls. From where he stood now, he had a straight shot out the door.

The next quarter-minute seemed to happen in slow motion.

Martha's heart thumped in her chest. She took her place against a railing on the ramp leading from the door to the console. She'd decided that _this_ would be her mark, for beginning her jump. But the way she was standing now, it just looked like she was trying to keep out of the Doctor's way.

"You forgive me?" he asked her.

"We'll see," she said, with a terrified smile.

And then, inexplicably, Donna, who was still standing near the door, turned to Colin who was about three feet behind her looking befuddled, grabbed him by the collar, kissed him hard, and said, "Wouldn't you know it. I meet you, and less than a week later I've got to do _this._ But at least we had Madame Tussaud's eh?"

"What?" Colin said, frowning.

"See you on the other side, maybe?" she said, ticking his chin affectionately, with her knuckle.

Martha and the Doctor both realised what was about to happen, a fraction of a second too late.

Donna had turned, and without pause, jumped out the door of the TARDIS. As they all screamed her name and leapt toward the door, she fell feet-first through a square hole in the ground, fiery hair trailing behind her like a comet, just as the console's countdown sounded off. She had hit the mark at precisely 9:38:41, and they all heard a great cacophony of ungodly noise, as they knew the _real_ time capsule was opened.

The Doctor, Martha, and Colin gathered, horrified, at the door. They looked with dread into the portal through which Donna Noble had just thrown herself, so as to save her friend from that fate, and preserve the Last of the Time Lords for the good of the rest of the universe.

Predictably, though, the man in the tan suit looked up with total shock, and spied the TARDIS. Because of the heightened perception filter, he had to squint to see what was hovering above, and then register what he was seeing… it was three full seconds, which was an eternity, in these moments.

"It's the Doctor!" he shouted. "Bogsdon! Activate the fail-safe!"

Off to the right, a man in a darker suit began running toward a black SUV, parked nearby.

"Who's Bogsdon, a what the fuck is the _fail safe?_ " Colin shouted at the Doctor, moving away from the door.

"I dunno," the Doctor panted. "If the Time Lords gave them a way to get rid of me, it could be anything! And it could be bad!"

He was staring out the door, eyes wide, teeth clenched, Martha gripping his arm. Donna's actions had stunned him frozen, and he stood still at that spot, his mind running through all the possibilities of what could be happening to his friend, what might happen now, and what it all meant… Donna was, indeed, something of a chaotic time event herself, having travelled with him for several months. But she was human, not Time Lord, and was nowhere near strong enough to handle the onslaught of pure time energy now coursing through her.

 _And she had known it! Damn it, she had known! She sacrificed herself! What the hell had she been thinking?_

Meanwhile, the man in the tan suit was shouting at him, but he didn't hear. Martha shouted back, obviously a bit more cognizant of what was happening around them…

The Doctor seemed unsure whether to keep an eye on the SUV or…

"Whoa," Martha said, grabbing onto the Doctor's collar. "Don't you dare think of going in there after her!"

He turned and looked at her, still shocked, still experiencing everything in slow motion.

 _Donna's gone._

Something in his body language must have suggested what had been on his mind. He looked back at the portal, then back at Martha.

"Doctor, no!" she shouted. "She did that so that _you_ wouldn't have to!"

 _Donna's gone Donna's gone Donna's gone._

"Martha…" he began.

"Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no!" Colin cried out, and with it, he ran toward the console. "This is rubbish! What's the matter with you people?"

The Doctor turned toward the console in panic, though he still seemed unable to move. "Colin, what are you doing?"

"Just what you told us to!" he said. He turned the dial the way the Doctor had shown Martha and Donna. "I don't see anything happening out there, except some random fail-safe and existence still bloody blinking!"

But then, orange-ish light began to emanate from the portal, and slowly, below, the pavement began to turn to a different, whiter hue. The man in the tan suit shouted, "It's happening! Bogsdon! Do it!" just before he disappeared in favour of a blank, pre-World War II corner of London. The crowd below began to chatter, and disappear, layer by layer.

"Colin, wait!" Martha said, seeing the horror on the Doctor's face. She wasn't sure what it meant, but she didn't think it was a good idea to go moving the TARDIS with the Doctor's clear uncertainty, especially with time shifting around them.

"No!" her cousin shouted back at her. "If Bogsdon does what he's gonna do, then the Doctor will be dead, and Donna's lost! We all are!"

He flipped the switch, and as soon as he did, the TARDIS' gears began to grind, and a big ball of green light seemed to shoot across the space in the room, though it didn't do any damage.

The Doctor ducked out of its way, and stared at its trajectory with shock and horror.

"It went right through us!" Martha breathed.

"Because we're disappearing," the Doctor breathed back, gripping the floor with both hands, white knuckles and all.

"Was that the fail-safe?"

"Yeah," he panted. "It was a light-compression field, lit-up by dimensional transference."

"Light compression? Like a black hole?"

"A moving one, yes," he said to her, absently.

"Bloody hell!" she shouted. "What were your people up to?"

"Never mind, it went through us," he said.

The door of the TARDIS was still open, and they could see 1938 taking over all around them, and as the gears ground, the blue box seemed to settle into the time change, and the grinding stopped sooner than expected.

"What's happening?" Martha asked, trying to hold down the panic in her voice. "Why did it stop?"

The Doctor glanced out the door. They were still hovering in the same spot over the corner of Earl's Court and Bolton Gardens. "Because it met 1938 halfway," he mused. He stood up and darkened the open door. "It's the first of January again. The time change happened… perfectly. At the perfect pace."

"So, no damage?" Martha asked.

"Not that I can see," he said. "No blast, no knocking anything down."

"And it didn't seem like a slow leak that was going to last for three years…"

"No."

"So, we're good? 1938-wise, anyway?"

"Yeah," he agreed, his voice getting softer each time he spoke.

"It doesn't sound like we're good," Colin said, coming down the ramp. "What's wrong, Doctor? And how do we find Donna?"

The Doctor turned and looked at him. Sadness coloured his face. He was pale, and exhausted. "It's possible that we won't."

"How can that be?" Colin asked, his voice beginning to ramp up a bit.

"She knew that when she jumped, Colin," the Doctor said. "She knew enough to know that _she_ would confuse the time energy in sort of the same way that I would… though, I would've expected it to spit her out a bit faster."

"What?" Colin shouted. "Did you just say _spit her out?_ "

Martha added, stroking her cousin's arm in comfort. "But she also would have known that she'd be less-equipped to survive it than the Doctor would." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Because I was planning to jump, and I knew it, too."

"Excuse me? You were planning… what?" the Doctor asked her, his voice and eyes tight with incredulity, his lips pursed open.

"I was planning to do, well… exactly what Donna just did," Martha confirmed. "Only she was faster."

"Wait, how could you… what were you… Martha, what good… why…"

"Doctor, stop," she said. "You know the answer to every half-question you just sputtered at me, okay? Bigger fish to fry now."

" _How do we find Donna?_ " Colin asked, emphatically. "And don't tell me we won't."

The Doctor began to walk up the ramp. "Well, what _might_ happen is, she'll appear on that spot, right where she disappeared, at some point today."

"You said _might,_ " Colin pointed out. "What are the odds?"

"The odds are good," the Doctor said. "Well, good-ish. Fifty-fifty."

"Okay, so we wait?"

"We could wait," the Doctor said, busying himself with the controls. The TARDIS' gears sounded, and through the still-open door, they could see that he had set them down on a corner, across the road from the slab of concrete where the time capsule might someday be buried. The perception filter was still heightened, so people were simply walking past, coming home from their New Years' celebrations, unseeing of the Police Box, and unhearing of its occupants.

"Would she appear there at the same time of day?" Colin asked, staring out the door at the spot. "Nine-thirty-eight, or whatever time it was in 2008?"

"I honestly don't know," the Doctor told him. Then he swallowed hard, and Martha could see that he was holding back tears. When he spoke, his voice came out broken. "But Colin, it's important that you realise… even if that happens, she might not be the same. Or even alive."

Colin turned on his heel angrily, and stalked up the ramp. "Are you saying, we may just be waiting about to find her dead body and bring it home to her mum?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, and now tears fell down his cheeks. "That's what I'm saying."

* * *

 **Donna... Noble indeed? Or just reckless? Let me know your thoughts! Thank you for reading.**


	30. Chapter 30

**For those of you who thought Colin was a bit too quick to accept all of this...**

* * *

THIRTY

It was the first of January, 1938, the dead of winter, and burning wood and coal could be seen and smelled all over London, as the populace tried to stay warm. Though, with the New Year's festivities, people were either in jolly moods, or hungover.

 _Some things don't change,_ Martha thought.

As she and the Doctor had seen earlier, Christmas decorations were still up, and in some cases, withering and hanging by a thread. Not for the first time, of course, Martha had occasion to look about, and notice the world before consumerism as she knew it, before information was available almost literally on the wind… before even plastics were used in the everyday. The decorations that hung above where she and Colin sat, under a storefront awning, were made from real evergreen sprigs and real holly.

"Well, I'll say this for him: he makes a good cup of tea," Colin said, sipping Earl Grey with lemon from a heated travel tumbler from the TARDIS' kitchen. He was waiting for Donna's return, on a bench across the street from the corner-in-question, bundled up in a coat, scarf and hat found in the TARDIS' wardrobes.

Beside him sat his cousin, Martha Jones, more than a decade his junior, more than a decade since having outgrown him, and yet, there it was, that old protective feeling bubbling up. He had asked her at least a hundred times if she was comfortable, and had reminded her that if she got cold, she could go inside the TARDIS. Five minutes prior, the Doctor had turned up with tea for both of them, as Colin refused to come inside until he was sure that Donna was accounted-for, and Martha refused to leave Colin.

What she hadn't yet told the Doctor was that she was actually reluctant to leave Colin to his own thoughts. She knew perfectly well that he was a grown man, an intelligent man, and a strong one to boot, and could completely survive this uncertainty, facing the possible loss of someone he seemed to care about quite a lot. But what she didn't know was, what would happen if he sat there and thought too hard about this whole business… the Doctor, what she had seen of his lifestyle, the fact that he seems to drag people into it, and they willingly risk (sometimes give) their lives for him. She didn't want him thinking that she'd been seduced into some dangerous, lascivious, codependent relationship by a diabolically charming man. She needed him to know that she was perfectly well, fully cognizant of the danger, and doing _what_ she loved, with _whom_ she loved. And she wanted him to know that the same was basically true of Donna – except without the lasciviousness and the _love_ bit.

Because, in the last few hours, Colin's amiable demeanour toward the Doctor had crashed and burned… hard. She couldn't blame him; he didn't have any kind of investment in the Doctor, but he _did_ have something of an investment in her and Donna. All he could see was that Donna had perhaps died trying to help the Doctor, and that the possibility might be all-too-real for Martha, as well.

Sitting there next to him, she could feel it… she knew him well, and she knew that he'd been just trying to find a way to broach the subject: what the hell are you doing with this guy?

And so, she jumped in. "He makes a good cup of tea?" she asked. "That's the only thing nice you have to say about him, at this stage, Colin?"

He sighed. "Well, what do you _want_ me to say, Martha? Haven't you been paying attention the last few hours?"

"Yes, but…"

"What, this is nothing new for you?"

"Well… sort of. Yeah, I mean… everything you've seen today, it's all pretty much part and parcel of our lives."

"A woman jumps into a black hole in the middle of London and disappears, and you're telling me it's routine?" he asked, practically whined. " _Your friend_ does this, and it's not worrying?"

"Of course it's worrying!" she said, exasperated.

"And _you_ were planning on doing it yourself, only you weren't quick enough!"

Martha tried to catch her breath. "Colin, if you knew some of the stuff Donna and I have done…" She pulled one gloved hand down over her face, much in the way the Doctor does, when stressed.

"I know, I know… I can't imagine."

Briefly, she thought about telling him about the Master, and her trek around the world. Though, she decided to save it for another day.

"I'm just saying, this is the life," she said, softly. "And you've had a taste of it. Even _you_ did what needed to be done, to preserve the Doctor."

"I did it for Donna," he corrected.

"Because _the Doctor_ is the only person who can get her back, am I right? The Doctor, in fact, is the only person who can do a lot of things, Colin, and that's what this is all about. All of it. It's why she and I do what we do. We… jump in with both feet, so to speak."

"That's not funny," he growled.

"I didn't mean for it to be funny."

"I did it for Donna, all right?" he repeated.

There was a pause of two or three minutes, while both of them sat in the cold and stewed.

"And now, I'm sitting here in fucking 1938," he said, looking about, nervously. "I mean… it's 1938. It's not a movie or a dressed set or a dream… it's real."

"Isn't it amazing?"

"It's disturbing. It seems wrong," he said, looking around.

"Seems wrong?"

"Like, there-are-forces-in-the-universe-that-ought-not-be-meddled-with sort of wrong."

"You're right. There are forces that ought not be meddled with, and _time_ is definitely one of them. But the Doctor is a Time Lord. It's his right. For him, it's not exactly meddling."

"To go hopping about all over history, changing things?" Colin asked. "I'm no expert, but that seems arrogant and risky. And it's meddling."

"It would be, except Time Lords govern the laws of these things," Martha tried to explain. "And the Doctor is the only Time Lord left. Basically. Apart from that, he feels time, and time travel, in his guts. It's part of his DNA to do what he does."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he practically hissed at her.

Martha was surprised at the force of Colin's rejection of the Doctor, all of a sudden. She wondered if perhaps he'd been holding this in all along, and now that he had an excuse it was open season.

"You're telling me, sitting here, thirty-some years before your own birth, don't you feel the least bit of awe? The least glimmer of understanding of why Donna and I insist on being involved in all this?"

"Why you've given yourselves over to him?"

"Given ourselves over? What are we, a cult?"

"Sort of feels like it," he muttered.

"Well, it's not a cult. Which, I realise, is exactly what I would say if it were a cult, but… You really can't see it, even a little bit?"

He was quiet for a long while, and Martha could see him thinking. Like the Doctor, it was obvious when the wheels were turning behind Colin's eyes.

"Okay, maybe I misspoke," he sighed after another two-minute interval. "Maybe it was unfair to say that you've _given yourselves over_. I mean, I can see that the Doctor is… he's a good bloke, right? I'm not just imagining that bit."

"He's the best man I know," she said, steadily, sincerely. "I can't imagine ever meeting anyone even half as clever or selfless, let alone all wrapped up in the same package."

Colin didn't look at her. "I'm sorry, Martha. I know you're an intelligent woman, but you sound a bit _Stepford Wives_ when you talk about him."

Martha had to fight herself not to immediately deny this, because she knew it would only add evidence to Colin's case. She tried to give the comment its due, and consider where it came from. Colin was her de-facto big brother. He'd watched her grow up. In his eyes, an intelligent woman though she was, he might still think of her as something of a fiery, spunky, impulsive child. Perhaps it was fair that hearing her sing the unmitigated praises of a powerful man made him bristle, especially now he was romantically involved with a woman also fiercely devoted to the Doctor.

"Okay… we can… talk about that, I guess…" was all Martha could think to say, that wasn't a denial nor an admission of anything.

"I see a charismatic, charming man, who leads a seductively exciting life, and… Martha, maybe you can't see it, but you are in it up to your neck. You seem to be in _him_ up to your neck."

"No, I can see it," she admitted freely.

"And when I said you'd given yourselves over, at least for you, I meant…"

"I know what you meant."

Another pause, while he thought. Martha could, again, see the cogs turning in his mind. At last, he said, "You're a grown woman. I'm sorry."

"You're right, I _am_ a grown woman, Colin. I'm educated, clever, level-headed… and I happen to be crazy in love, as well. Can't those things go together?"

"Perhaps," he conceded. "But not for very long."

"Okay, so it's _new_ ," she told him. "We've been a couple for less than two months."

"Really?" Colin asked, turning to face her. "I thought…"

"It had been longer?"

"Yes!"

"No. We've known each other for over two years, but it was only seven-and-a-half weeks ago that we… well…"

"Yeah, don't finish that sentence," he said. He let out a big, contemplative sigh. "Well, on the one hand, this just makes things so much worse, because after seven weeks, you're already so… Oh, Martha, do you know what long-term relationships are like? They're hard. And they change. They get less-exciting."

"I know that."

"One day, you're not going to be so crazy in love, and you'll just be… this guy's girlfriend. This really dangerous guy."

"Colin…"

He turned toward her all of a sudden, and his eyes were wide with emotion. "But, on the other hand, this is good, because maybe you're _not_ in it up to your neck! It's only been seven weeks – you could still extricate yourself!"

She chuckled. "I was in it up to my neck the day we met," she told him. "And I'm sorry, but nothing is going to change that. The Doctor doesn't have _casual_ acquaintances, and he doesn't commit to anyone or anything _just a little bit_. You can't love him _calmly."_

"But on some level, that must've been a choice! You can un-make a choice sometimes."

"Are you trying to get me to leave him?" she asked, her heart sinking.

"What if I am?" he asked. "Would you hear me out?"

"I'm letting you talk, aren't I?"

"I have a lot more to say, believe me."

"I won't stop you from making your case, Colin, but… you're wrong. It was _not_ a choice on any level. The pull I felt toward him, as I said, already on the day we met, was overwhelming. And… well, I tried to leave him once."

"You did?"

"I did. It didn't work. I missed him every day that I wasn't with him. I missed everything about him; the physical and the cerebral. I missed the travel and the discovery and doing good all over the universe."

He turned back again, and looked straight ahead at the corner across the road, where their friend may or may not appear sometime today.

"Martha, what's happened to Donna?" he muttered, almost inaudibly.

"Is this a rhetorical question?"

"Maybe," he grunted.

"Colin," she scolded.

He cursed and stood up, and began to pace the sidewalk. "I get that you like doing good deeds, but Jesus Christ, Martha. This man, this _Time Lord_ is under your skin in a big way, and he's got you and Donna, and God knows who else, risking your skin! Willingly! What if you fall out of his magic box and into deep space, eh? What if you die in a laser battle on the planet Mongo? Or from the Black Plague in medieval Venice? How will your mother feel? How will Tish and Leo, and Gran and the rest of us feel?"

"Not any worse, I imagine, than if I stepped off the kerb in twenty-first century London and got hit by a bus," she said, calmly.

He let out a grunt of frustration, and was angrily silent for a few moments. Eventually, he threw himself back down onto the bench beside her, and said, "Martha, come home."

"Come home? Who are you, my dad?"

"No, but he'd probably say the same thing."

"No, he wouldn't."

"If he knew the kind of…"

"He does know, Colin. They all know – mum, Tish, Leo, even Nadine. They know. They're not that keen on it sometimes, especially mum. And if I haven't let my mother talk me into stopping this madness..."

"…why should let me?"

She shrugged in a way that seemed to say, _exactly._

"Can't you do good _here_? In Britain? On Earth?"

"I can, and I do," she said. "I can do more with the Doctor."

"Plus, you love him."

"That's the bit that's beyond my control."

"He loves you, that much is bloody obvious."

"It is _now,_ " she agreed.

"Okay… let's just say for a minute that what you're doing and saying makes any sense," he said, poising his hands in _hold it_ stance. "That being with the Doctor is inevitable for you, that it's something you're compelled to do, by your body, by your soul, by your mind, and all that."

She chuckled. " _Let's just say for a minute?_ Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, cousin."

"Right. All of that… that's you. What's Donna's story?"

"Oh, well… honestly, Colin, you'd have to ask Donna," Martha said. "And it's very likely that you'll have a chance later today."

"But she doesn't have the same kind of connection with the Doctor that you do, but it is _a connection_. How does she fit in?"

Martha shrugged. "The possibilities for living a more meaningful life are staggering, with the Doctor, which I think you understand, whether you want to admit it or not. And she's fond of him, but unlike me, no part of her is in it for… you know."

"The hair and the suit?" he asked, with bit of cynicism.

"Yeah. I don't know all the details of how Donna and the Doctor found each other, but once they did, they were fast friends. Fierce friends. Each one of them holds a unique place in the other's heart, that no-one can touch. You and I both will have to come to terms with that."

"I see," he commented, non-committally.

"That's living a bigger life – friendship and knowledge, and self-growth. But love? The drippy side of it? Romance? The sexy, sweaty bit? They don't even look at each other twice when that stuff comes up. In fact, they pointedly look away. Much as you and I would."

"So, what, they're like… cousins?"

"If you like," she conceded. "Actually, that's a pretty good way to put it."

"I see," he repeated, with a sigh.

"I'm almost sorry you got involved, now. We introduced you to someone wonderful, then made you watch her disappear."

He shut his eyes tight, and bowed his head forward, resting it in his hands. "Seriously, Martha. She's gone, possibly forever. That was almost you."

"I know."

"Please consider what I've said. Will you do that?"

* * *

"Oi," the Doctor said softly to Martha, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up, you."

She sat up with a start, realising it was dark, and impossibly cold. Her head had been resting on Colin's shoulder, and the two of them hadn't moved from the bench where they'd been waiting for Donna. The Doctor had brought them food and tea throughout the day, and sat with them for an hour at a time at different points. But, he could sense tension with Colin, and he needed to keep an eye on the console, just in case a hint of Donna was traced through the localised wormhole between 2008 and 1938. So, he'd spent most of the day inside.

When Martha stirred, so did Colin.

"Oh," she groaned. "I feel like an icicle. What time is it?"

"After midnight," the Doctor said. "She's not going to turn up on that corner. Let's get you both inside, where it's warm."

Martha moved round the bench and made to follow the Doctor's advice. A warm shower sounded absolutely heavenly right now.

Colin stood, but he seemed transfixed, looking at the spot where now, it seemed Donna was not going to appear.

The Doctor put a hand on his shoulder and tried to encourage him toward the TARDIS. "Come on, Colin. You're going to give yourself hypothermia."

"Are you sure she's not coming?" Colin asked, sounding heartbreakingly sad.

"The portal led to the first of January, 1938. It's now the second of January, 1938. No Donna. Come on, mate," the Doctor coaxed again, gently pulling Colin's arm.

When they stepped inside, the Doctor had warm milk waiting for them both. They thanked him, and took it, gladly.

"Colin, I've made up a room for you," he said, after a few minutes, and helping both of them out of their coats, scarves, hats, et cetera. "I can show you…"

"So, that's it, then? We give up on Donna?" Colin interrupted.

"No," said the Doctor. "We're just going to get some rest."

"She could be anywhere!"

"No, she couldn't," the Doctor countered. "As she fell through the portal between two points in time, and didn't turn up at, as they say, point B… that means she must've been knocked sideways somehow. There are any number of ways that can happen…"

"What the hell does that even mean?" Colin shouted, spilling a bit of the milk.

"Wait, if she was falling through a portal specific to two points in time on a particular, specialized, now-defunct timestream, and was knocked sideways, does that mean…" Martha said, thinking aloud. "She's in the vortex somewhere?"

"Wow, you'd make a fair Time Lord, Dr. Jones," the Doctor marvelled. Then he sighed, rubbed both of his eyes, and looked utterly exhausted before confirming, "But, yeah."

"Whoa," Martha muttered.

"Again, what the hell does that mean?" Colin asked.

"It means that we – especially you two – need a good night's sleep and clear heads before we can rescue her," the Doctor insisted. "She may or may not be alive, but if we're going to have any hope of getting her back in _any_ state, we've got to be sharp, warm and a lot less irritable."

Colin growled some sort of contrarian curse word, but he knew it was true. He allowed the Doctor then to lead him down the hall, show him where the kitchen was, just in case he felt peckish, then to a bedroom.

"The bathroom is through there," the Doctor said, pointing to a door. "There's a soaking tub, a shower, some spare clothes, if you like. I didn't know your size, so I just brought in a bunch of stuff. There's also a small washer in there for your own clothes, if you prefer. Pyjamas in the drawer."

"Thank you, Doctor. All this is yours?"

"Basically yeah," the Doctor sighed. "But the TARDIS is meant for a crew of six, so there's always six working bedroom suites. She can create more, if the need arises."

"Donna occupied one?"

" _Occupies_ , Colin. Present tense. And yes. The same room usually serves as quarters for whoever is travelling with me… Martha used to sleep in the room that's now Donna's. Before that, someone called Rose slept there."

"Now she'll share your room? Martha, I mean?" Colin asked, quietly, not looking at the Doctor, pretending to fidget with a lamp.

"Yes," the Doctor answered. He resisted to urge to ask if that was a problem.

"Okay," Colin sighed. "Thanks for the digs."

"Yep. I'll wake you in nine hours."

* * *

 **Crash of the Doctor and the Architect! Oh no!**

 **I heard little more than crickets on the last chapter! I know this wasn't the most exciting thing, but leave me a review anyway. It will make my day!**


	31. Chapter 31

**Thanks so much for the feedback on chapter 30! You guys are the best!**

 **Most felt that Colin was totally justified in his anger toward the Doctor, even though it looked, for a while, like he'd maybe begun to fall under the Time Lord's spell. I think of Jackie Tyler asking the Doctor point blank, "Is my daughter safe?" and Francine insisting, "He's dangerous!" and begging Martha to walk away. Even Martha herself, "The Doctor's wonderful and he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned."**

 **But the best was Rory Williams, the ultimate out** **sider-insider, in the Doctor's world: "You know what's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks... you make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around." Boom, right?**

 **Anyway, Donna's still out there somewhere, Martha's still attached to the Doctor for better or for worse, so Colin's probably not going anywhere for a while. And maybe not just because he refuses to leave...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

THIRTY-ONE

Ten hours later, Martha Jones was in the console room with two men who, she was acutely aware, were more or less feuding. And she felt that impact so poignantly because one was the man she loved, and the other was a man whom she'd respected like a big brother, all her life. She felt like she was being forced to choose between two parts of herself.

Which was ridiculous, because it was not a matter of _choosing_ , no matter what Colin said.

Though, it was difficult not try and take sides when both of them, at different points, had gone on a whinging tirade about the other.

"You can tell a lot about a person from how they act when the chips are down, Martha," the Doctor had lectured, climbing out of his suit, the night before. "Things are fine, but then, first sign of trouble, Colin's instinct is to try to find someone to blame, and begin to treat _you_ like a child. I'm dangerous, and you need to leave me?"

"You're not wrong," she said, settling in against the headboard. "But neither is he. Except about the leaving part. Tried that, hated it."

"So… you think I'm dangerous?" he asked, staring at her a bit incredulously.

"Aren't you?"

He sighed, and then continued unbuttoning his shirt. "Yeah."

Just a little over a week before, Martha and Donna had had a heart-to-heart over the dangers of travelling and being involved with the Doctor. It was like that conversation foreshadowed everything that happened in the eight days following.

"Colin didn't sign up for any of this, and we have turned his worldview completely upside-down in the last day or two… and that's not even counting introducing him to Donna! He's human, and I think we should give him some time, and benefit of the doubt," she said. Then, she took a thoughtful pause, and continued, "Now, having said that, he clearly isn't giving _you_ the benefit of the doubt. And, he _could_ keep his mouth shut for a bit longer, and trust that I know what I'm doing, unless it becomes amply clear that I don't. Or that _you_ don't."

The Doctor sighed, again. "He's a good guy, Martha."

"Believe it or not, he thinks you're a good guy too. It's just, travelling with you is like a knife-throwing act, and he obviously recognizes that."

"A knife throwing act, Martha?"

"An exercise in trust," she explained. "I mean, personally, I, as your lovely assistant, am ninety per-cent confident that you know what you're doing, and so is Donna. But the audience... they're gasping and biting their nails, and covering their faces because they're afraid you're going to drive a blade into one of our eyes, each time you throw. They haven't been through what we have. They don't know what we know."

The Doctor crawled into bed beside her, and just sat for a couple of minutes, thinking, staring at his hands. Then he said, "Okay, maybe it is a knife-throwing act, and I don't mind Colin thinking, or knowing, that. I'm just a bit bothered by how quickly he turned on me."

"Don't forget that on top of everything else, Doctor, he's a man in love," she said, softly. "Or at least a man very much in the beginning stages of love with a woman he met less than a week ago. He might have been able to hold it together, had Donna not…"

"Done what _you_ almost did?" he asked, looking at her with pleading, sad, droopy eyes.

"Yeah," she whispered.

"What made you think I would have been able to hold it together any better than Colin?" he asked. "You can't say I'm in the beginning stages."

"What made you think I would have?" she countered. "Can't say I am either."

They were silent for about minute.

Then, "The bottom line is, the universe can do without me. Or even Donna. It can't do without _you_. That's why I almost did what I did, and why Donna did what she did."

"Oh, Martha," he groaned. "There's so much wrong with that statement."

And then, the two of them talked through the next two hours, and oddly, nothing they said led to sex. It was a first for them: retiring to the same bed, with _sleep_ on their minds, without making a conscious decision to abstain from lovemaking.

Counterintuitively, it made Martha feel rather warm and cosy.

But, at eleven o'clock a.m. on the second of January, 1938, the cold had come back home to roost, right there in the TARDIS, with the Doctor and Colin not looking at each other, and Martha trying her best to seem affable toward both.

The Time Lord stood at his screen, feet apart, arms crossed over his chest, scrutinising the display as though a dear friend's life depended upon it.

"For God's sake, what're you doing?" Colin snapped, after watching him for a few minutes.

"Sssh," Martha warned, her cousin on her left.

"I'm trying to find Donna, oddly enough," the Doctor muttered back, definitely without shifting his eyes, and almost without moving his lips.

"I thought we were going to fly into the… _vortex_ , or some such," Colin complained.

"We will," the Doctor answered. "But the vortex is infinite, so it might help if we had some idea of where she might have gone, and by the way, would _you_ like to drive?"

"Oi," Martha now warned the man on her right. "Tone."

The Doctor and Colin both scowled, and Martha hung onto the console, and simply waited. She waited for the Doctor to say something, for him to tell her what was going to happen next, that Donna was okay, and that the solution was simple…

"Martha, Colin," he said, looking up at both of them. "This might get ugly."

"That's not what I was hoping to hear," she whined.

"Nor me," Colin agreed. "Ugly, how?"

The Doctor took a deep breath, and Martha could tell that he was holding back tears. "I'm getting signs of organic material in the vortex, finally, but no…" he gulped.

"No what?" Martha asked, already more or less knowing the answer.

"No signs of life," he said.

"What?" Colin shouted.

"There's no guarantee that what I'm picking up is her," the Doctor said. "It's not unheard-of for organic debris to work its way in…"

"Organic debris?" Colin was shouting again. "Is that what she is to you now?"

"No!"

"That's what you called her!"

The Doctor squinted his eyes. "I don't recall that bit."

"You said, _it's not unheard of_ …"

"Colin!" Martha scolded. "Stop it! He's trying to be reassuring! You'd know that if you didn't have a giant bloody chip on your shoulder! The Doctor and I care about her as much as you do, and want her back as badly as you do. Each of us is doing everything that he or she can, to make sure that Donna Noble is very soon standing in this room, saying something cheeky and loud, because that's the only way that our little world will keep on turning. That is how we'll know that all is right with the universe again. So, stop being so damn tetchy! If you want to help, just belt up and wait for instructions!"

Colin wasn't particularly surprised to receive this lecture, so he simply sighed and held up his hands in _disarmed_ stance, and moved a few more feet away from her.

After several tense, silent moments, the Doctor muttered, more to himself than anyone, "Okay… might as well start on the plane between 2008 and 1938…"

"So, we look for a gold sliver of time, like before?" Colin asked, rather timidly.

"No, I wish," said the Doctor. "Her falling into that hole erased the alternate timeline, so the timeline she was in is now just… reality. Which is actually a good thing, except for the fact that it now blends into the rest of reality."

"I have no idea what that means," Colin reported, shaking his head.

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor said. "The important thing to know is that there are no special gold veins in play here. It's all just big, fat, unadulterated vortex."

Martha found this a terrifying thought.

Suddenly, the TARDIS' high-pitched gears began to grind, and Martha and Colin both knew that they were moving through time. Though, the sound did not stop within ten seconds as it often does…

The Doctor said, "This might do it," and jogged down the ramp, chancing to open the door. Once again, both passengers could see that they were flying through the vortex… noise rushing, light flashing.

"Oh my God!" Colin shouted, as he stared out the door between the Doctor's head and the doorjamb. He ran down the ramp as well, and nearly pushed the Doctor overboard as he came to a skidding halt.

Martha, of course, wondered what he'd seen, so gathered at the portal between the other two. When she saw, she had to choke back a sob, and she breathed, "Oh my God," echoing her cousin.

Because, there was Donna, clear as day, flying through the vortex ahead of them, wearing the clothes in which they'd last seen her, green top, boots and all, and her hair blowing back like an explosion from her head. The TARDIS was following her at breakneck speed.

"Is she alive?" Colin managed to choke out. "I mean… she's not moving. Or is she? It's impossible to tell at this speed!"

"Only one way to find out," the Doctor said, running back up the ramp.

"What are you gonna do?" Colin asked, looking mightily worried.

"I'm going to try and catch her, of course."

The TARDIS' gears amped up, and became louder, then quieted again. Martha and Colin held on tight as the vessel dematerialised, then rematerialised, and when they did so, they could not see Donna, though the TARDIS was still moving. They seemed to be chasing nothing.

"Bollocks!" the Doctor shouted, before either Colin or Martha could ask where Donna had gone. "I missed! Well, if at first you don't succeed…" And with exposed, gritted teeth, he tried again, and the TARDIS' gears got loud, then soft, once more, and they rematerialised.

This time, they could see Donna, but she was a bit farther away than she had been before.

"What are you trying to do? Materialise around her?" asked Martha.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "But it's not like doing it in space, or on terra firma. This is the bloody vortex!"

And with that, he tried again. This time, the TARDIS turned over, jostling them all, and when they gained their bearings, they could see Donna now chasing _them_.

But before anyone could make that comment, they were jostled hard, a second time, and Martha and Colin were thrown off their feet. Donna had disappeared again.

"Doctor, what the hell?" Martha shouted.

"We're off-course! I'd programmed her to follow Donna, but once we got in front of her, the TARDIS got confused," he shouted back, at almost as dizzying a pace as the police box was flying. He patted the console. "It's all right old girl… let's just find her again, eh?"

"Find her again? To what end, exactly?" Colin asked, stalking up the ramp.

"What do you mean, _to what end_?" the Doctor fired back, distractedly.

"I mean, it doesn't seem like you have any fucking idea how to get her back!" Colin argued. "Sure, you can find her, but then what? We just keep chasing her and trying to _rematerialise_ around her! It's like trying to catch champagne in a sieve!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's not working!" Colin shouted.

"I'll get it, Colin!" the Doctor insisted. "She's a moving target, on the most difficult plane in existence to navigate!"

"Well… Jesus Christ. How long can she survive in there?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, beginning to panic a bit. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry… I just don't know."

Colin cursed under his breath, then fell into a contemplative, frightened silence, and began to pace back and forth.

After a few minutes, Martha took his arm in mid-pace, stopping him, and, gesturing at the Doctor, said, "You're acting like _him._ Are you gonna be all right?" She spoke as gently as she could, while still trying to talk _over_ the sound of the whooshing vortex.

"This is all a lot to handle, you know? I mean…" he looked out the still-open door. "What the hell is _the time vortex?_ How can any of this be real? How can _he_ be real? Everything I've seen in the last two days seems impossible… and then some."

"I know," she sighed. "It's like baptism by fire, isn't it?"

"And then, to boot…" he said, and with that his eyes filled with tears. He blinked, and one or two fell down his cheeks.

"Oh, Colin," she said, resting her head against his arm.

"This is daft," he spat, wiping his tears away. "I've only known her for five days."

"It doesn't matter," she whispered, making eye-contact across the console with the Doctor. "If you feel, you feel – can't fault you for that. You should've seen me after five days with _him."_

Colin broke away from her, and approached the Time Lord. "How goes it, Doctor?"

"I'm close," the Doctor assured him. "We'll find her, Colin… in fact… ha! Got her!"

Martha and Colin both cast their eyes out the door again, as the TARDIS' gears did their thing, and surely enough, there was Donna, still flying at a million miles per hour, and yet eerily still.

With a mighty cry, both Time Lord and TARDIS tried their best one more time to catch the "organic debris" that was Donna Noble, otherwise lost in the vortex…

"Damn it!" the Doctor spat.

"Doctor…" Colin said, standing beside him at the console.

"And again!" said the Doctor, not hearing Colin at all.

One more time, the Doctor tried to materialise his vessel around Donna, and one more time, he failed.

"Doctor, can this thing go any faster?" asked Colin, grabbing onto the Doctor's arm with both hands, to get his attention.

"Yeah, why?"

"Can you fly it manually?"

"Yeah, why?" the Doctor repeated. Then it occurred to him _why_. His eyes went wide and he said to Colin, "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Not a chance. I'm not losing you, too."

"Let me try!" Colin insisted, pulling away from the Doctor, and gesturing widely with his arms.

"Try what?" Martha shrieked. "Grabbing her while moving a zillion miles per hour through the bloody _time vortex_?"

"Yes!" her cousin shrieked back. "Call it plan B!"

"Are you completely mad?" she asked.

"Maybe! No madder than he is, with his teleportation or whatever. It's like at work... sometimes, in architecting, when the computer can't draw with the precision of a human being, you just gotta do it the old-fashioned way. The technology isn't working, so let's go analog. Eyeballs and manpower!"

"Colin, if you fall out…" the Doctor began.

"I'll be lost in the vortex, just like her," Colin said. "And you'll find me. Maybe you'll even get me back."

Martha's eyes were wide now, too. "Doctor, can it be done? Can you chase her down manually, get close enough that we can grab her?"

"You thought he was mad, a minute ago!" the Doctor reminded her.

"I know, but… he's right," she said. "What we're doing isn't working. And Doctor… _it's Donna._ "

Looking back and forth between his trusted Companion and her cousin, the Doctor's brow began to bead, and he felt frantic. "I… I can try, but the odds…"

"I don't care," Colin declared. "If there's a chance, I want to do it. Full throttle, Doctor."

"Full throttle, until the precise moment comes to slow down, so we don't plow into her and damage her more than she's already been damaged!" the Doctor reminded him. "Plus… you've got no leverage, nothing anchoring you."

"So tie me to something," Colin said.

The Doctor sighed. Martha was looking at him, half-pleading, half amused. Either way, it was an expression imploring him to give Colin a chance.

Anyway, at this stage, he couldn't bear to try again to catch her in a rematerialisation, and miss again.

So, he dived underneath the console and tore up a floor panel. He jumped down into the area below, and Martha and Colin watched him root around through the semi-dark for something, they assumed, fairly specific.

A moment later, a long, thick rope was heaved out of the hole and onto the floor of the console room, and the Doctor then heaved himself ungracefully back out as well.

"A rope?" Martha asked.

"He said analog," the Doctor shrugged.

Colin seized the rope and began to fasten it around his waist.

"What do we attach him to?" Martha asked, seizing the other end.

"The base of the console," the Doctor said. "All the way round."

Martha walked the rope round the console twice, then began to tie a knot. She reckoned she'd let Colin inspect the knot himself, and tie it however he liked, since it was _his_ life on the line.

As she watched, Colin actually fashioned himself a kind of harness, round his waist, over the shoulders and across his chest and back. The rope was plenty long, and he looked surprisingly secure.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Martha asked him.

"Boy scouts," he shrugged.

"For what? Your Extreme Sports badge?"

Absently, he said, "Don't be daft. It was sailing." He then knelt and checked out the knot Martha had tied. He made an adjustment or two, then stood and said, "I'm ready."

The Doctor asked, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"This is madness, Colin."

"I couldn't agree more."

Martha squeezed her cousin's arm. "Please don't die," she whispered, then she kissed his cheek. "And thanks for getting her back for us."

Colin pulled her into a hug, then walked down the ramp resolutely toward the door. Quite a few yards of slack rope pooling behind him. Martha followed him down, and they could see Donna flying, still at an insane speed, about fifty yards ahead of the TARDIS.

He braced himself against the doorjamb, and the Doctor muttered, "Here goes nothing," and with that, the velocity of the TARDIS increased noticeably, and Martha gave a shout, as she grasped the nearest railing for dear life.

She turned her attention toward the woman in the vortex, who was now closer, but it was clear that they would have to speed up even more, in order to get close enough to catch her.

"More speed, Doctor!" she shouted. "She's still twenty yards out.

"Are you sure there's not enough rope?" the Doctor shouted back. "If I go any faster, and get any closer, I'm afraid I'll run into her and send her flying… break her whole body!"

"I can't tell how much rope there is!" she told him. "I can't…"

"Only one way to know!" Colin declared, then he leapt out the door, straight at Donna, without looking back.

The Doctor shouted in horror, watching, and also trying to navigate a high-speed vessel…

Martha screamed her cousin's name and leapt toward the door. Seeing this, both of the Doctor's hearts practically leapt into his throat.

But Martha's body came to a stop right at the precipice, and she was now grasping the rope with both hands.

"What's going on?" the Doctor shouted, trying to drive straight "Has he got her?"

"No!" Martha cried. "He's close! Oh, God, he's so close!"

She could hear her cousin's long, wailing voice, alternately screaming in terror and calling out Donna's name. She could see him swiping at Donna's hair, and missing.

"Doctor! You've got to give him a few more feet! Just a little more speed!"

"I can't! It's too risky! This thing wasn't built for speed, Martha!"

"You've got to! Just a bit more! We can't give up now!"

The Doctor cursed loudly, and Martha chanced to turn back and watch him. She saw him steel himself, brace his feet wider apart, try to regulate his very heavy breathing…

"I'm gonna give her a surge," the Doctor shouted. "It's the best I can do without ramping up to the next level of speed and risking all of our lives!"

"Okay!"

"Give me a moment to get the precision I need…"

Martha kept her eyes on Colin and Donna, but heard the Doctor moving, talking to the TARDIS, shouting at it, throwing switches, and then he said, "Forgive me for this… _allons-y!_ "

"Colin, a surge is coming! Grab her!" Martha cried out. "Be ready!"

And the TARDIS gave a swell of gear-grinding, and it did not sound happy to do so, but for about four seconds, Martha could see that they were noticeably closer to Donna.

She saw Colin make a desperate, shrieking swipe at Donna, trying to catch her arm. He missed with his right.

"Shit!" she shouted.

He tried with his left…

And he had her!

"Oh my God! He has her!" she said, though she did not shout it, as she got to her feet and grasped the rope with both hands. She began to pull, but didn't make much progress.

The Doctor had not heard what she said, but he could see what she was doing, and he set the controls to slow the TARDIS to a reasonable speed. He ran down the ramp and took the rope out of her hands. He began to pull, and Colin and Donna began to move in closer.

Martha threw open the opposite door, and braced herself against the left-side doorjamb, and encouraged all involved to pull, hang on, be strong…

And when Donna's body was in reach, she grabbed on, and heaved backward, pulling Donna into the console room, heaped onto the floor. Colin soon followed, and he fell at Donna's side, turning her onto her back.

He took her face in his hands and began to shout at her in panic, "Donna? Donna? It's me! Can you hear me?"

Martha lurched over Donna's supine form, pushing Colin away. "You've got to give her some air, Colin," she scolded. "And give me room to work!"

He looked at her with total shock, seeing her for the first time in "doctor" mode. The Doctor leaned down, grabbed him by the arm, and helped him to his feet.

"Come on, give her a minute," he said.

They watched her pry open Donna's eyes to examine them, then check her jowls, and take her pulse…

After a minute, Martha sighed, sat back on her knees, looked up at the Doctor with tears in her eyes.

* * *

 **I hope your heart is pounding!**

 **Don't be silent! Tell me what you're thinking...and thank you for reading!**


	32. Chapter 32

**All right, my friends - finally, the story is winding down. I believe I can now confirm that this will be a thirty-five chapter story. That means, four more chapters, including this one!**

 **Our lovely Colin just defied death and leapt into the Vortex to save Donna, but when they brought her aboard, she was unconscious and Martha was in tears. So let's see what happens with Donna...**

 **But let's also explore some of our feelings about our unscrupulous pals at the Heimat Squad, who tried to do some mightily nasty things, shall we?**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

THIRTY-TWO

After a long, agonising wait for Donna Noble to return to their midst, she was back in the TARDIS. Plucked from the terrifying, churning fabric of the time vortex by Colin Brownhill, whose investment in her, even by his own admission, seemed out-of-proportion for the time he had known her.

There she was, clear as you like, on the floor, on her back, totally unconscious.

Colin took her face in his hands and began to shout at her in panic, "Donna? Donna? It's me! Can you hear me?"

Martha lurched over Donna's supine form, pushing Colin away. "You've got to give her some air, Colin," she scolded. "And give me room to work!"

He looked at her with total shock, seeing her for the first time in "doctor" mode. The Doctor leaned down, grabbed him by the arm, and helped him to his feet.

"Come on, give her a minute," he said.

They watched her pry open Donna's eyes to examine them, then check her jowls, and take her pulse…

After a minute, Martha sighed, sat back on her knees, looked up at the Doctor with tears in her eyes. "Her pulse is faint, and she's got severe concussion."

And then, Donna began to seize. On the up-side, they could see that she was alive. On the down-side, this was a very strong indicator that her recovery was going to be a hard row to hoe.

Her body shook like a leaf, and the Doctor knelt immediately and helped Martha turn Donna onto her side. The seizure played itself out, while her friends held her not-too-tightly, and her very new love interest watched in horror.

When it stopped, the console room was silent, except for the subtle hum of the TARDIS.

Martha looked at the Doctor, and broke the silence gently. "What d'you reckon? Abnormal electrical activity overstimulating the brain?"

"At the very least," he said, his eyes wide with disbelief. "She's been pounded on all sides by _time_. I know what that feels like."

"Can you prep the infirmary?" she asked.

"Yep," he said.

"Monitors, IVs, defibs on stand-by… the whole nine yards."

"I'm on it," he said, jogging toward the hallway, and disappearing.

"Shouldn't we get her to a _real_ hospital?" Colin asked.

"The TARDIS' infirmary is fully-equipped," she said, stroking Donna's hand, rather sadly. "Beyond state-of-the-art."

"Still, shouldn't she be seen by a…"

"A doctor?" Martha asked. "Erm, hello?"

"Martha, I mean…"

"What? A _real_ doctor?"

"I…" Colin began, seeming to stutter a bit.

"What do you think I've been doing? Just showing up at A&E in scrubs, because they're so stylish?"

"Okay. Fine."

"Colin, I know I'm your kid-cousin, or whatever, but…"

"I'm not doubting you," he said. "I would just feel more comfortable if we took her to a real hospital!"

Martha gaped at him for a moment, before something occurred to her. Her face fell. "Do you mean, away from him? From the Doctor? The one who got her into this situation in the first place?"

"Maybe."

"Colin, no one in the universe, not me, not any hospital, not even bloody Hippocrates, is better-suited to take care of her than he is. What physician do you think knows more?"

"It's not a question of _knowing_ things…"

"Besides, let's say that you actually _are_ the one who gets to make that decision (which you're not). We walk into an ED with a comatose, or semi-comatose, woman, seizing, with some sort of brain-injury… what do we say happened to her?"

Colin thought about this. "I don't know," he sighed.

"It's the first question they'll ask: what happened to her, and what was she doing when it happened? What do we tell them, the truth?" she asked, chuckling a bit. "Yeah right! So we wind up saying, _we don't know_ what happened. And then, let's say they decide to give us the benefit of the doubt, that we _actually_ don't know what happened to her (which they wouldn't do, because they'd be on-alert for violent behaviour or evidence of substance abuse on all of us), the next thing they'll do is give her an MRI. When it shows that the electrical activity in her brain is going haywire, off-the-charts for anything terrestrial, what will they do then?"

"No clue," he admitted.

"To be honest, I don't either," she said. "Call in neuro, do unnecessary surgery? Test her for a bunch of drugs, habits, and diseases _we know_ are not the cause?"

"Okay, I get it."

"And if I tell them everything I know about her condition, they're going to wonder how I know it, so I'll have to tell them who I am. And the fact that I came in with a patient under suspicious conditions will be noted, and will follow me, and possibly haunt my career _forever_. If I hold back what I know, she could die, so why bother?"

"Fine, fine," he said. "You win. She stays here under the loving care of you and the Doctor!"

"Trust me, Colin, this is life with the Doctor, and it's better this way," Martha told him. "And if Donna could talk, she would agree with me."

He nodded then, because he knew it was true.

* * *

Colin carried Donna into the infirmary, where Martha undressed and changed her into a hospital gown, then administered medication, hoping to stabilise her blood pressure. Donna had been lost in the vortex for almost twenty-four hours, so Martha started a hydrating IV drip, and a feeding tube, then fitted her with an oxygen cannula. She and the Doctor got the heart and brain-wave monitors up and running, and connected Donna to them, to watch her vitals. The Doctor routed the information to the TARDIS console, so they could still problem-solve, and keep an eye on their precious charge.

"You can stand there all day and night if you want, Colin, but it won't do her any good," Martha said to her cousin, standing helplessly at the foot of Donna's bed.

"I can talk to her, can't I? Don't they say that coma patients can hear you?"

Martha conceded, "She's probably in toxic-metabolic encephalopathy, which means she _may_ be able to hear you."

"I'll stay with her for a while, then," he said. "You go."

"I'll bring you some tea in a while."

"Okay."

* * *

"You're staring at the screen," she said. " _Quelle sur_ p _rise._ "

"We still have to deal with bloody General Kir, and Wilmer T. Simpleton," he said, low and discouraged.

"Well, yeah, but we knew that," Martha said.

"I know," he sighed, pulling his hand down over his face. He leaned back on the chair, and said "It's just… doesn't it seem like after all we've just been through, the crisis should be averted?"

She came up beside him and draped her arms around his shoulders. She kissed his temple. "Yes. But one crisis _is_ averted: Donna's going to live."

He nodded. "Thank you for that."

"And London didn't get flattened," she added. "It'll be nice and intact when the Nazis come to bomb the hell out of it, isn't that great?"

"Fantastic."

"So… I know that we can't just track down Greene or even Kir and try to talk them out of this, stop it happening Marty McFly-style," Martha said.

"No, we can't," the Doctor agreed. "The Time Lords and the Heimat Squad, they'd just find others to do it."

"Right. I have no idea where that leaves us."

"It's like I said before, we'll have to intervene on a different level. With the Time Lords (which can't be done because they're time-locked) or the Heimat Squad."

"Can _that_ be done?"

"Well, they're not time-locked, but they _are_ bloody cretins," he sighed. "So who knows?"

"Any ideas, at least?" she asked.

He nodded, and paused, exhausted. Then said, "I've been thinking a lot about this room within the complex in the Kyriarch system where we were held. It's a lot like this one – some of the same instruments that the TARDIS has on her console are in that room, only arranged differently, because the objective is different."

"The room that the Time Lords built."

"Yep. From that room, they were able to truss up 1938 the way they did, and shove it into a capsule, and they could do it again and again. Well, anyone could, if they knew how to use the equipment. But no-one knows anymore, except for me."

"And you've been thinking about it, why?"

"Because I feel like it's the key to all of this," he said. "I could rig it up..."

When he trailed off, she muttered, "I say you go in there, and set the whole thing to blow up, and take all those bloody uniforms with it."

"Dr. Jones, you know that's not my style," he said. Then he frowned. "Nor yours. So what gives?"

She seemed to realise something just then, as her face registered confusion, then surprise. "Wow, yeah, that didn't really sound like me, did it?"

"No," he agreed, looking concerned.

"I guess I'm angrier than I realised."

"Because of the time-loop thing?"

"No…"

"Because of threatening you with…"

"Torture and gang rape?" she snapped.

He nodded knowingly.

"Yeah, that'll stick with you," she said tersely. Then she sighed. "The dust has settled a little bit, and I'm just now sort of realising what almost happened."

"I'd never have let…"

"I know that's what you _think,_ but what if things hadn't shaken out the way they did? What if we hadn't had Agent Pym there, to set us free? You'd have been forced to show them how to basically imprison humanity for eternity, or…" She didn't finish her thought, but rather, gave a shudder, and willed away the images in her mind. "And you'd never let them imprison humanity."

"Fortunately, I don't have to make that decision now," he assured her, reaching out to take her hand. "I have to say, I knew Kir was a piece of work, but _that_ was a special kind of heinous."

She nodded. "I asked Pym if Kir would actually be capable of following through, and he said he didn't know."

"He would be," the Doctor said.

"I think so too."

After a long, contemplative pause, the Doctor said, "I wonder what the real Galactic Council would do if they found out that Kir had used _their_ good name to commit kidnaping, coercion, collusion to imprison a level-5 planet, tampering with temporal spheres and fibres, and abuse of power with intent to commit level-7 acts of cruelty on the Orlingus scale."

They looked at each other with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. "Should we find out?" Martha asked.

"In due time," the Doctor answered. "Meanwhile, I've got some of my own thoughts on the topic. And I do enjoy _expounding."_

* * *

Agent Pym had not left General Kir's side in an uncomfortably long time. This was only because he had been ordered not to be out of the General's sight. Otherwise, he'd have loved nothing more than to be, really, _anywhere_ else.

When Kir and the transfer team had appeared at the Doctor's cell to escort him, by dual sharp steel collars, to the Time Lords' control room, and the Doctor was not there, Kir had turned to Pym and demanded to know what had happened.

"The Doctor must have escaped, sir!" Pym said, frantically, looking about. Funny thing was, even though _he_ had been the one to give the Doctor the means to escape, his demeanour was not feigned. He was terrified of being found out, and he was searching the vicinity for hints that anyone was onto him.

The General cursed loudly. He then ordered the team down one floor to Martha Jones' cell.

She too, of course, was gone.

"Pym, what the hell is going on?" Kir asked.

"He's absconded," Pym said. "And obviously you know that for him, Dr. Jones' safety is a priority."

"Obviously," the General said, sardonically, with drooping eyes.

"I'm just saying, there would be no way he'd escape without taking her with."

Kir looked at him suspiciously. "You seem to have thought this through."

"It doesn't take that much thought, sir," Pym said. "How hard did _you_ have to think, in order to know that threatening _her_ would make _him_ agree to reset the time loop?"

"Hm," the General grunted, still eyeing Pym. Then his tone changed, and he addressed the other three agents. "Team, search the premises, and put another ten agents on the task. Except for you, Pym. You're with me."

"All right, sir," Pym agreed. "Doing what?"

"I'm not sure yet," Kir said, before taking off down the hall, and up the stairs, with Pym in tow.

Since then, Pym had spent some time in Kir's office, watching the General make communiqués with beings all over the universe, trying to get a read on how the Doctor might have escaped, and/or what he might do next. The only consistent thing he'd been able to glean from this method is that the Doctor is resourceful, volatile, proud, and unpredictable.

"This is not what I wanted to hear," Kir said.

"I imagine it's not, sir."

"I was hoping to be able to determine an M.O."

"I suppose there's a reason the Doctor's been able to stay alive for so long," Pym commented. "No solid M.O. Just a lot of clever problem-solving, and using what's at-hand."

The General squinted at him. " _Clever problem-solving?_ So you admire him, now?"

"One must respect an intellect of such... utility. The reason you were so keen to get him here, and you're so keen now to get him back, is that you _need_ him. You need his brain. You need his skill. You need what he knows."

"Yeah, well, don't overstate it, Pym," Kir growled. "You're already on my list."

"Of course, sir."

"I imagine he'll have gone back to Earth," said Kir, after a contemplative pause.

"Perhaps," Pym said. "Though, if he thinks the Earth is headed for a big crash-and-burn, he might be trying to work remotely."

"Like from his TARDIS?"

"Maybe. Yes."

"Then he could be anywhere!"

"Yes, he could," Pym agreed, trying to hide his vindicated delight.

In addition, Pym had taken five or six meals with Kir (not eating the same things, of course, just eating by his side, almost as a prisoner might), and had waited unhappily while Kir played a long round of Princey Cups with his cronies. He'd waited even more unhappily while Kir had had a rather soulless sexual tryst with the beautiful, but cowed, wife of an inferior officer, then showered.

All in all, it had been a fairly disgusting couple of days.

Pym had not been asked to _do_ anything, except… precisely nothing. He followed the General about, slept when the time came, ate when the time came, kept quiet unless spoken-to, and learned a lot more about General Kir than he'd ever wanted to. He'd not been allowed to be on his own, except to use the toilet, and even then, the room was inspected before he entered it, when he exited, and he was timed.

One morning, while Kir took a decadent breakfast and Pym was having dry bread with stale coffee, Pym asked, "Sir, may I ask you a question?"

"Are you going to ask what the hell I'm doing, keeping you around? I think you already know the answer to that."

"I understand that you're trying to suss out whether or not I'm responsible for the Doctor and Martha Jones' escapes," Pym admitted. "Or, you're trying to make sure that I don't do anything else untoward."

"That's right."

"But what are you hoping to accomplish? Are you waiting for some random confession? Are you learning the art of mind-reading?"

Kir seemed to look at him as though seeing him for the first time. "To be honest, I still don't know."

"Why don't you just dismiss me from the Squad? Fire me, and I'll get out of your hair."

"Because I don't trust you," the General answered. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and studied the agent. "I've never been a huge fan of your namby-pamby prisoner-care bullshit… though until now, I didn't think it would affect me, so I didn't mind if you went ahead with it. And, you _were_ asked to convince the Doctor that this was all the work of the Galactic Council, so a certain measure of _softness_ was in order. But now… I don't know…"

"Softness," Pym chuckled. "Interesting that you see anti-cruelty measures as _softness._ "

"But then you seemed to embrace it with a gusto that I just don't understand."

"Then I'll help you understand: only barbarians embrace cruelty."

Kir got to his feet swiftly, angrily. Pym moved to do the same, but Kir, pushed him back down by the shoulder. The General took a deep breath and checked his temper. "You know, Agent Pym, I still have not heard you deny that you set the Doctor and Martha Jones free."

Pym sighed. "Would it make you feel better if I did?"

Again, Kir narrowed his eyes. "Actually, no. It doesn't matter."

"I didn't think it would."

Kir began to circle round the breakfast table. "What I can't work out, Pym, is whether you actually unlocked the Doctor's and/or Martha Jones' cell, and set them free, or whether your fucking _anti-cruelty_ measures gave them an opening."

"So, you're saying, if we had perhaps knee-capped the Doctor and tortured Martha Jones as you threatened to do, they wouldn't have been physically able to escape, and you'd be happier?"

"I didn't say that."

 _You didn't have to,_ Pym thought.

Aloud, he said, "No, sir, you didn't."

"Bottom line is, I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Agent Pym. On the one hand, I'd like to have you executed. On the other hand, the time capsule has been detonated already, and 1938 on Earth is up and running again, so it doesn't seem as if the Doctor accomplished what he set out to anyway, and now we have another seventy years to procure him and Dr. Jones, and _talk_ him into showing us how to do it again."

"Talk," Pym whispered.

"So perhaps your incompetence or insubordination, or whatever it was, did no harm. In which case… I _still_ don't know what to do with you. Until I do, I'm not letting you out of my sight," Kir said, sitting back down, and taking another bite of his breakfast. "Speaking of which, just a warning, Myrilette and I will be getting together again this afternoon. Just after lunch, in fact."

"Myrilette? Sergeant Coff's wife?"

"Yes," Kir confirmed.

"Wonderful," Pym said flatly. "I guess Coff _really_ wants that promotion."

"Indeed he does," chuckled Kir. "He's not going to get it, but we won't tell him that just yet."

"He's not?"

"That tosser? He's incompetent. His skull is filled with tapioca, and he's got no useful skills. His wife, however… she's got a useful skill or two. Maybe I'll promote _her,_ " the General joked, before giving a lascivious laugh.

"Great. So you can let him know he's stuck as a Sergeant, _after_ you're finished using his wife."

"That's right. Problem with that?"

"Yes. But it's none of my business."

That was when Agent Oly, another member of the original transfer team, stuck his head into the room. "General Kir?"

"What is it? Why are you interrupting my breakfast?" the General practically whined.

"It's the machinery room."

"The machinery room?"

"Yes, sir," said Oly. "The one the Time Lords built."

"What about it?"

"There's a problem."

"What sort of problem?"

"I don't know," Oly told him nervously. "I've just been told there's a crisis, and you're needed."

"Damn it," Kir grunted, standing up grudgingly. "Come on, Pym."

The three men walked out of the General's quarters, and down long and winding hallways, until they reached the Gallifreyan control room, capable of packaging blocks of time into neat little, destructive, capsules.

But only with the proper know-how, of course.

And the only man in the universe with the proper know-how was there, Converse squeaking against the floor, as he moved about, pulling levers, adjusting dials, and pressing buttons.

* * *

 **Don't be silent! Drop me a line! Show some luv!**

 **(Thanks for reading!)**


	33. Chapter 33

**At some point during my writing of the past few chapters, I realized, what General Kir did was pretty heinous, and what he _threatened_ to do to Martha... I can't really imagine the Doctor forgetting about that, can you? Too personal, too disgusting. But he's the Doctor, so he walks a fine line. A repugnant villain's comeuppance is always a slippery slope...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

THIRTY-THREE

Three men walked out of the General's quarters, and down long and winding hallways, until they reached the bizarre Gallifreyan control room, capable of packaging blocks of time into neat little, destructive, capsules.

But only with the proper know-how, of course.

And the only man in the universe with the proper know-how was there, Converse squeaking against the floor, as he moved about, pulling levers, adjusting dials, and pressing buttons.

"Doctor! I thought you'd escaped!" Agent Pym said, before he could stop himself.

"Oh, hi guys," the Doctor chirped, still flipping switches and turning knobs. "Nah, I didn't escape. Been here the whole time. What, didn't you see me?"

"Come clean, Doctor! Where the hell have you been?" demanded Kir.

"That is neither here nor there," the Doctor said. "Heh – d'you see what I did there?"

"How did you escape?"

" _That,_ General, is in the past, and if anyone knows what sorts of things to leave in the past, it's me. What's important now is the future. Where do we go from there? That is the real question."

"What are you doing?" the General asked.

"Calibrating," the Time Lord replied, squinting at a small screen and adjusting a toggle.

"Calibrating what?"

"Substantive parameters of the altitudinal and longitudinal frontier of the helically-oriented snare I'm building, which has to do with an oscillating signature, employed by a particular entity," he answered. After a pause, he looked at the General. "Glad you asked?"

"Does that mean you're isolating a time-block?"

"Indeed it does," said the Doctor. "Yes. No. Well, sort of. I mean, I'm isolating something."

The General watched him for a few moments with confusion. The Doctor didn't look at him, but could feel the man wondering at him, if he'd really been here the whole time, and just managed to outsmart them… or had he gone away and come back? And why?

"Where's Martha Jones?" was all he could articulate right now.

"In an undisclosed location, General. You gave her quite a scare – she won't come near you," the Doctor reported. "Because honestly, she's afraid of what she'll do to you if we give her half a chance."

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" the General finally spat. "What's the matter with you two idiots? Grab him!"

Oly lurched forward, and Pym did as well – though only half-heartedly – before the Doctor said, "I wouldn't, if I were you," with one finger pointing up, knowingly.

Both Agents stopped.

"Grab him!" the General shouted. "What the hell are you waiting for?"

"They're waiting to hear the consequences of doing so, General," the Doctor said, with an eyeroll.

"There's no fucking consequences!" Kir continued to cry out. "Get him into cuffs, you idiots!"

The Doctor strode forward, walking between Oly and Pym, and approached the General directly. "Two points, Kir," he said. "One: why don't you do it yourself? Eh? Just _grab me_ if you want to! Go ahead, big boy, I might like it!"

"What?"

"And two," the Doctor continued. "Well, actually… point one-A: I know why you won't grab me. Because you are _also_ afraid of what will happen if you do. Which brings me now to point two: this room has some _fearsome_ power in it. I'm vulnerable, I'm clever and I'm the only one who knows how any of this stuff works. So yeah, there are _fucking consequences._ Your words, not mine."

"All right then," Kir said, silkily, sarcastically. "Enlighten us."

"For one thing, I've got Dr. Jones on standby with multiple contingency coordinates set. All I'd have to do is give her the word, and she'll materialise the TARDIS around all of us. Then I'll be the one in charge and making threats. But, you know, I don't want to be guilty of kidnapping. I mean, honestly, who would?"

"Interesting."

"And the TARDIS could get you into her dimensional field before you even know it's happening," the Doctor boasted. "And once you're in… well… I might just hand you over to Martha. I might forget to feel compassion for you, as well."

The General laughed. "Compassion for me. Right."

"Why are you laughing?" the Doctor asked. "Clearly, you haven't done your homework if you don't think I could have compassion for someone like you. Just because _you_ can't understand feeling a gut-level empathy and sorrow for a person who has a different point of view than you, doesn't mean it doesn't happen."

"Listen, I don't need your compassion, all right?"

"Sure you do. Come on, General, anyone who would do the things you did… d'you know, orchestrating a systematic impersonation of the Galactic Council could get you thrown in the _real_ prison of the Inner Sanctum for a decade in and of itself! And then, using their name to commit a dual kidnapping, attempted coercion, collusion to imprison a level-5 planet, tampering with temporal spheres and fibres, and abuse of power with intent to commit level-7 acts of cruelty on the Orlingus scale…" the Doctor laughed mirthlessly. "You've got issues. With power. With self-image. And, probably with your parents."

General Kir rounded on Agent Pym. "Do you have any idea what he's talking about?" he asked, angrily.

"Yes, sir," said Pym.

"Then tell me."

Pym cleared his throat, then hesitated for a second, before saying, "You kidnapped and imprisoned a sentient being in order to try and coerce him into doing what you wanted. Attempted coercion under duress carries a hefty fine."

"In addition," the Doctor added. "You tried to coerce me into tampering with temporal spheres and fibres, which I have the right to do, according to the Galactic Council, but _you_ do not. If I did it because you forced me, _you_ would be guilty of that tampering. Another hefty fine. Tell me, General, do you think the Heimat Squad would pay _two_ penalties of six million credits, and allow you to keep your job?"

"I've heard enough," the General said, again with anger. He barely made a move toward the Doctor.

The Doctor reached out to a switch on the control board where he'd been working, and touched it lightly. "Give me a reason, General. I've been in this room fiddling with time, space, the Vortex, all sorts of fun things for about a half-hour. You have no idea what this switch will do. I have compassion, but I _will_ protect my interests."

"Coward."

"Mm-hm," the Doctor grunted. "Continuing on… Earth is a level-5 planet, which means that the human race has protections, particular to a sentient, intelligent species. I don't care what the Time Lords said – I rarely ever did – but humans _are_ level-5 beings… _at the very least!_ And they have more determination and compassion than any other level-5 species! And you, General, you attempted to imprison it. Or at least, you participated in collusion to imprison it! That's another decade in the Inner Sanctum, if you're lucky! And then… then, there's the Orlingus scale! Oh, my…"

Again, Kir addressed Pym. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the Doctor just now. "What do you know about the Orlingus scale?"

"You committed a level-4 act of cruelty, with intent to commit level-7 acts," Pym told him calmly.

"Which means?" Kir asked, frowning hard. The Doctor could see he was rather worried now.

"The things you said you would do to Dr. Jones. Issuing threats to incite abject bodily fear, even if you don't follow through, is a level-4 cruelty. Rape is level-6, and torture is level-7."

Kir scoffed. "I wouldn't have followed through."

The Doctor took a couple of steps forward again. "If I asked Colonel Rax whether or not he'd actually put the branding kit on stand-by, on your orders, for Dr. Jones, what would he say? Or better yet, if a Galactic Council Interrogator, with their particular _abilities_ asked him, what would he say?"

Kir remained in a seething silence, which spoke volumes.

"And if they asked him whether you'd mentioned to him the prospect of _sharing_ a harried and unwilling Dr. Jones with him, what would he say?"

Again, Kir's eerie silence.

"That's what I thought," the Doctor said quietly. He took a deep breath and began to walk around in a large circle as he continued talking. "So, you see, you're definitely worthy of my pity. I see that very clearly – inside that starched green uniform, there is a very scared, vulnerable man, who has no idea how to handle his emotions, other than through aggression."

The General laughed. "Very enlightening, Doctor, thank you."

"Or, at least, you _were_ worthy of pity," the Doctor went on. "You know, I've got to tell you, General, most of this Galactic Council, time loop, conspiring rubbish, it's all just law-breaking. It's destructive and annoying, and it's the kind of crap I've dealt with all over the universe for almost a millennium. It gets old, but I cope with it."

"Well, aren't you the benevolent angel," the General sneered.

The Doctor stopped and faced him then. "No. Not without limits, anyway. Because when you were talking to Martha, threatening her, subjugating her… _that_ was more than just annoying and destructive law-breaking. That was personal. That betrayed in you a certain despicability. That displayed a choice to handle your _issues_ in a way that forces other people to their knees, and I won't have it. You lost my goodwill with that little episode, General Kir."

"Oh, really?"

"Really."

"No compassion left?"

"I wouldn't say _none_ , but… you can't push me, and someone I love, to the edge of sanity, and expect us to come back with a _totally_ sane response, now, can you?"

Teeth clenched, Kir asked, "So what areyou going to do, Doctor?"

The Doctor indicated the large switch which he'd pointed out earlier. "This lever is set to do something fairly wicked. It might re-isolate 1938 for you, or it might not."

"What?"

The Time Lord smiled. "You've no way of knowing what it will do… you have no context for predicting my actions."

"Haven't I?"

"No, you haven't. Because, you can't understand me on a personal level, and you left it up to Agent Pym to do all the homework, so… I'm afraid you're buggered."

"Oly," the General barked. "Inspect that control panel. Find out what the switch does."

Agent Oly looked at the General quizzically, and then shook it off, and moved forward to study the buttons and bobs surrounding the switch.

The Doctor laughed. "Really?" he asked Kir. "Have one of your agents _inspect_ it?"

Oly, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to glean anything from it, turned around and faced the Doctor and the General again. His face seemed to be asking both of them, "What do I do next?"

After a long pause, the General said, "I'll risk it. Grab him!"

This time, neither agent moved. The General, however, was not particularly surprised.

"Wise decision," the Doctor said to both Oly and Pym. "See, you don't employ halfwits, do you? They know there's no telling what could happen if I flip that switch. This whole building could get sucked into a black hole! This entire outpost!"

"You wouldn't."

"Or better yet, and far more likely," the Doctor said, poignantly, almost with exaggerated mock-amazement. "The entire Kyriarch System could get lost in time. I could take this entire corner of the universe in this entire century, and squish it into a theoretical space the size of a coffin! In which case, time stands still and meaningless here forever, unless and until someone opens it up, and then it all goes _splat_ across the cosmos, and _everyone_ dies. Inside, outside… anything in its path."

"Is that what you've poised to do?" the General asked. He indicated the switch. "With that? Wipe the Kyriarch system off the map completely?"

The Doctor fluttered a crooked eyebrow at him. "Call me irresponsible."

"Why would you do that?"

"You try imprison my people (and try to make me help you, no less), so I imprison yours. A fairly straightforward eye-for-an-eye scenario. Only I'm a lot cleverer, so I can do it bigger and better and faster."

"Your people?" the General scoffed.

"Yes," the Doctor spat. "The Time Lords were stodgy, dodgy, and too big for their britches. Gallifrey was beautiful, but it was, more often than not, stifling for me. Outside of my TARDIS, Earth is where I belong, these days, General. Humans? They're amazing! I love their ingenuity – that same ingenuity that you lot, and the Time Lords, find objectionable enough to squelch for all eternity. I love their indomitable spirit, and that inborn curiosity. I've loved individual humans more than I ever loved any Time Lord – with one possible exception.

"In fact, Kir, I love a human – a secretary, and a damn good one, who's done more than anyone else, in helping to take _you_ down. She is currently convalescing in my TARDIS, and may or may not make it, because she tried to save her planet. She decided to give her life to foil your plan, and I think that's chuffing brilliant. Sad, terrifying, and rage-inducing, but brilliant.

"And, as you know, there is a human who works as an A&E physician in central London, with whom I've uncompromisingly _fallen_ in love," the Doctor continued. "I love her... so much I can't think straight sometimes. And you knew that, didn't you? When you threatened to torture and use her, you knew it would rattle me to the point of breaking."

"I did," Kir said. "Though, I have to admit, _you_ are not the only reason I'd have for wanting to keep company with Dr. Jones."

The Doctor smiled indulgently. "I've got the upper hand now, so you're trying a cheap trick to rattle me again. Well-done, sir."

There was a long standoffish silence, and then General Kir said, "I think you're bluffing. Not five minutes ago, you talked to me about compassion."

"I also talked to you about losing my goodwill and patience with you."

"I'm still not worried," the General shrugged, but the Doctor could see that he was.

The Doctor sauntered up very close to Kir, and in low, tense tones, said, "You poise to plunge the planet I love into an endless, hellish nightmare. One of my best friends nearly dies trying to stop you. You kidnap me, try to force me to commit atrocities against innocents. And then, when I say _no deal,_ you force the woman I love to her knees, threatening to torture and rape her if I don't comply."

"And?"

"I'm a Time Lord," said the Doctor, growling now. "I fought in the war that destroyed Gallifrey, and it wasn't my first rodeo. I was a soldier, a man of combat, just like you."

"Congratulations."

"So, with all of the rubbish you've put me through, and with my knowing that you could and would perpetrate the same crimes all over again, you tell me, what's more likely: that I would squeeze some vestige of compassion out of one of my hearts, and let you continue on in some semblance of life and some semblance of dignity, or that I would put your world on the edge of disaster, and give it a push?" As he said this, he reached out and touched the switch.

The General was breathing heavily, and his eyes were switching back and forth between the button and the Doctor's face.

After what seemed an eternity, Kir asked, "What do you want?"

"I want you to leave the Earth alone," the Doctor responded. "I want you to let the twentieth century carry itself forward as normal, into the twenty-first, then the twenty-second, and then the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, and so on, _ad infinitum._ Stand down, General, or, well… you know the consequences."

"If you swallow the Kyriarch system with a time-squish, or whatever, you'll die too."

"Yeah, but that's not new to me," the Doctor dismissed.

And that was when the air filled with the sound of ethereal grinding. Neither Pym, nor Kir, nor their colleague Oly, had heard the noise before…

…although Agent Pym had a good idea what it was. And it made his heart pound.

 _The TARDIS. Here, in this room!_

"Right on time," the Doctor quipped.

The blue box appeared about twenty feet away from them, and Martha Jones opened the door. "Hiya. How are things?" she asked.

"Brilliant," the Doctor answered. "Nice job aiming."

"Pff. You said press the button, so I pressed the button," she shrugged, then seemed to notice the other men in the room. Impassively, she said, "Hello, Agent Pym. General."

"I knew it," the General sneered. "You scared weakling, Doctor! You've summoned your vehicle and your girlfriend, and now you're just going to turn and run, aren't you?"

The Doctor approached the TARDIS. "I've done what I came here to do, so yes, I'm leaving."

"With your tail between your legs!"

"Call it whatever you like. I call it a fail-safe."

"What, that switch?"

"Erm… yeah. I thought that was what we'd been talking about… thought that was clear."

Kir laughed out loud. "You're running away to save face! That switch doesn't do what you said it would do!"

"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't," the Doctor said, stepping into the TARDIS.

Again, Kir eyed the switch. "Lightweight. Liar," the General growled. "I'll get a crew to begin dismantling this machinery - we'll work it out for ourselves."

"General, trust me. You do not want to tamper with that equipment, nor find out what that switch will do."

"Doctor, may I ask you a question?" Everyone in the room was surprised to hear Agent Pym pipe up at this stage.

"Of course," answered the Doctor, from just inside the doorjamb of the TARDIS. Martha stood next to him, with the left-side door slightly open, peering out.

"Is it true that the interior of the TARDIS is in another dimension?"

"Yes," said the Doctor, patting the wooden frame round the entrance. "This doorway is a dimensional compression field that allows one to pass from one layer of reality into a compacted space."

"It travels through time, and the interior is immune to the jostlings of the Vortex and whatnot?"

"Well, we still feel the impact, but… well, more or less, yeah."

"Pym, shut the hell up," the General whined. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm making sure the Doctor and his Companion are safe, sir," said Pym.

"From what?"

"From this," Pym answered, lurching to his left, toward the switch with his hand out.

"Pym, no!" everyone cried out.

Pym pressed his palm against the lever, and said to General Kir, "I've had enough of you. I've had enough of the Kyriarch System. I've even had enough of _me._ Just… bloody enough. I want to find out what the switch does."

He braced himself for a second or two, then pressed down on the switch.

As the General disappeared into a swirling mass of orange light inside of one second, his voice echoed across the space, yelling in anger, in terror… in vain.

"So that's what it does," Pym mused.

* * *

 **Whaaa?**

 **I love when the Doctor talks the bad guy's ear off. It's so much fun to write! What do YOU think?**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	34. Chapter 34

**Second-to-last chapter, friends! The good news is, I've been working on something new(ish)...**

 **But first, let's find out what happens to Donna and Colin, and how the Doctor explain himself...**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

THIRTY-FOUR

For about a week, there were four occupants of a TARDIS parked in a common garden in Prince's Square. No-one felt they had any reason to go anywhere, but felt they had every reason to stay.

Donna's coma was complete for the first three days, and then she began to slip in and out of consciousness intermittently. But, when she was awake, she was confused. She seemed to recognise Martha, but no-one else, and asked, heartbreakingly, after her granddad each time she opened her eyes.

Her body was riddled with muscle spasms at best, and at worst, she had terrifying seizures. Martha treated her with Torpiramate, a common anti-convulsant, and the frequency of seizures began to abate day by day. Though, perhaps as a side-effect, perhaps not, her blood pressure seemed unregulatable; no matter how Martha adjusted her dosages, she could not keep it stable. The Doctor rigged a way to compensate for high or low blood pressure by using a kind of miniature defibrillator to regulate blood flow using electrical pulses…

"I can't believe that works," Martha mused, after seeing him do it for the first time.

"More things in heaven and Earth, Horatio…" the Doctor commented, walking away.

She chuckled, remembering how she'd used that exact phrase with her cousin, days before, when he couldn't believe what he was seeing in the TARDIS. It felt like a much more innocent time.

Colin spent most of his days with Donna, that is when he wasn't forced out of the room in order to eat, sleep, or simply _stop_ biting his nails at the bedside. But, he was never without a doctor attending her as well – and that was fine with him. The monitors, the IVs, the chaos, the intertwining cause-to-effect of all the human body's functions… he was happy not to have to think about that stuff. The Doctor and Martha saw to it that all he had to do was hold Donna's hand, read to her, and occasionally watch a bit of telly, pretending she was watching with him.

On the sixth day, the fog seemed to lift.

Colin was sitting with his feet on her bed, watching a football match, eating crisps, making occasional comments about how his team were "rubbish" this season, and all of a sudden, he heard, "Colin?"

He spilled the crisps all over the floor, and the Doctor, who had been on the other side of the room, cataloguing supplies and preparing to re-order, skidded across the room in order to come to her bedside.

"Donna!" he shouted.

"Doctor?" she asked, looking at him with a measure of lucidity for the first time in a week. She looked around the room. "What's going on? Am I in hospital?"

"You're in the TARDIS," he told her, his eyes filling with tears. He took her hand and squeezed. "God, it's good to see sentience in your eyes."

"This is the TARDIS?" she asked, looking around again. "The TARDIS has a hospital in it?"

"Of course," he shrugged. "The TARDIS has a swimming pool, billiards room, library, spiritual centre, a Canadian mountain lagoon, two formal gardens, a Beethoven-themed room, and I'm thinking of putting in a Starbucks. Why _wouldn't_ it have a hospital?"

"What happened?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.

The two men looked at each other. Then Colin asked, "What's the last thing you remember?"

She placed her hand at her forehead in thought, examining the IV site as she brought her arm up. She thought for a moment, the said, "Hovering above Earl's Court Road and Bolton Gardens in the TARDIS, looking down upon… oh…"

Her eyes had gone wide with realisation.

"You remember jumping into that hole?" Colin asked, turning off the television.

"I do," she answered, in total disbelief.

"We waited for you in 1938 for a while, but you didn't turn up, so the Doctor tracked you down in the Vortex," Colin explained.

"In the Vortex?"

"You got lost," the Doctor told her, his voice breaking slightly.

She smiled. "Thanks for getting me back."

"I just found you," he said. "Colin did the hard part."

"What was the hard part?" she asked Colin, looking at him anxiously.

"We don't need to talk about that now," he said, patting her hand. "Don't worry yourself."

"Colin, what did you do?"

"He tied himself to the console with a rope and demanded that I speed up the TARDIS so he could leap out and grab you," the Doctor said quickly, before anyone could stop him.

"Doctor, no…" Colin said, lowering his eyes.

"What? It was heroic!" the Time Lord insisted. "Bloody insane, but heroic."

"You did that?" she asked Colin, again anxious.

"I did," he admitted, sitting down in his chair again.

"The technology wasn't working, so the Architect decided to go analog," the Doctor said, remembering that day.

"I have no idea what that means, and… don't tell me," Donna chuckled. "Just… thank you both. Where's Dr. Jones?"

"Asleep," the Doctor said. "She and I have been taking it in shifts. I should tell her you're lucid."

"No, don't bother her."

"Are you kidding? She's going to want to know you're awake!"

* * *

That evening, they all had dinner together for the first time since the gourmet burger place, the night of Colin's grandfather Floyd's funeral. Which had been less than two weeks prior, but seemed like years. The Doctor boiled some pasta, deeming it sufficiently bland for Donna's recovering stomach, and served it with some light olive oil, oregano, and simple salt and pepper. They ate fruit, had some sparkling water, and the Doctor, Martha, and Colin sat in chairs with trays, while Donna ate from her bed. Donna talked about what she was beginning to remember, after leaping into the time portal (mostly flashes from her childhood and early adulthood, a few moments of the sensation of falling, bright lights, seeing her granddad, and occasionally, Martha's face, like an angel, lulling her). Martha and Colin chatted a bit about football, but the Doctor, while listening, stayed mostly silent. He had retreated into watchful mode again, the mode in which Colin had first seen him.

"What about you, Spaceman?" Donna asked, cheekily, popping a cube of melon into her mouth.

"What _about_ me," asked the Doctor, secretly delighted to hear her call him _Spaceman_ again.

"You're uncharacteristically quiet," she said.

"Just thinking."

"Stop that," she scolded. "Tell me what happened to the bad guys."

"The bad guys? You mean General Kir, and the wacky gang at the Heimat Squad?"

"Yeah!"

"Ugh, Donna," Martha said. "You're going to be sorry you asked."

"Why?" Donna wondered.

"You just are. Why don't we talk about something else?"

"No way," Donna insisted. "Out with it, Spaceman."

He sighed heavily, then, "The General is, as you once were, lost in the Vortex." The Doctor said this without making eye-contact.

"What?" she shouted, her conversation with Martha a couple of weeks before, concerning the darkness of the Doctor, popping into her head now. She now had no idea who to look to, the Doctor, Martha, or Colin.

"I told you," Martha said, knowingly.

"Jesus! Who are you, Bruce Wayne?" Donna asked, in her trademark high-pitched, riled-up fashion. "Doctor, what were you thinking?"

"Well, it's better than what I _said_ I would do!" he practically whined. "At least I didn't squash the whole Kyriarch system into a coffin!"

"That's what you tried to do?" Donna asked, incredulous.

"No, that's what I _said_ I would do, Donna," he responded. " _Said,_ not actually _tried._ It's called a scare tactic. Nothing was ever rigged to cause destruction on such a scale. Blimey, how could you think I'd do a thing like that?"

"How? I've seen you…"

"Yeah, I know, I know," he muttered, taking a bite of pasta.

"All the same," she sighed. "Good grief, Doctor. You pushed him into the Vortex?"

"I programmed the equipment to track his energy signature, put in specs for his height and weight, then technically had him swallowed, by the Vortex. And let's be clear, here: I _did_ give him a chance, and I'm not the one who actually flipped the switch."

"How?"

"I told him I'd rigged the switch to swallow up the Kyriarch system, and told him not to touch the machinery in that room ever again, if he didn't want to be swallowed up with it, thus keeping him from binding 1938 again and imprisoning the planet Earth in a time loop. And then, Agent Pym flipped the switch, not me. So it's a little more high-tech, and a lot less brute-force than you're implying, but… yes, basically, I banished him to the Vortex."

"That's an awfully big punishment for some guy who… basically didn't get to accomplish what he wanted."

"He did it for me," Martha said, softly.

The Doctor muttered, "You don't need to make excuses for me. Donna's got my number, one way or the other."

"He did it partially to punish Kir for all the ugly, nasty stuff that he said he'd do to me – and _with_ me – if the Doctor didn't comply," Martha continued, ignoring him. "None of it actually happened, mind you, but if the Doctor had chosen humanity over my well-being (like he perhaps should have)…"

"Martha…"

"…then I would've had my skin branded and been raped… both repeatedly. Probably by several different people."

" _That's_ what this General Kir bloke was gonna do, if the Doctor didn't give him what he wanted?" Colin blurted out.

"Yes," Martha said.

"And the Doctor agreed to give him what he wanted?" Colin asked, in disbelief.

"Yes, he agreed to show them how to imprison the human race," Martha said. "To keep me safe."

"Holy shit," Colin muttered. "I have… _no_ idea what to do with that information."

"And, the Doctor got Kir to basically admit that he'd had every intention of going through with those threats," Martha added, to everyone in the room. "The threat itself, oddly enough, is a crime, too."

"Basically admit?" Donna asked.

"I asked him what his fellow operatives would say if I brought in an interrogator to see if he had made plans to procure a branding kit, and then…" the Doctor swallowed, unable to give any more direct thought to the rest of the scenario.

Martha finished his explanation. "General Kir, thank God, has no poker face whatsoever. And he just stared at the Doctor with this steely anger, that betrayed everything. I watched the whole sordid episode on the monitor."

"Then I say, bloody good riddance to the General," Colin declared. "Well-done, mate."

"Thanks," the Doctor said, expressionlessly.

"No, seriously. I know you and I have been having our differences lately…"

"You have?" Donna asked, practically shrieking the question. "What the hell does _that_ mean?"

"A lot's happened since you've been gone, Donna," Martha said. "Fill you in later."

Colin continued, "…but the world doesn't need a guy like that. Or the universe. Whatever."

"Ordinarily, Colin, I operate under the rule that it's not for me to decide that," the Doctor grumbled, trying very hard not to be condescending.

"But what would you have done if what's-his-name hadn't set you free? Would you have really showed them how to redo the time loop and keep my planet in its place?" Colin wondered.

"No," the Doctor said. "I reckon I'd have hemmed and hawed a bit in that time-machinery room, and then come up with something brilliant… probably something very much like what I did, in the end. I agreed to it just to keep Martha safe, and buy some time."

"Erm, can we concentrate on the _real_ question here, Spaceman? No offence, Martha. But how are we going to save General Kir from the Vortex?" Donna asked.

"Save him?" Colin asked. "Why would we save that arsehole? So he can threaten more people, and maybe follow through next time? Imprison other civilisations throughout the cosmos?"

"Why? Because he's a misguided man, an individual worthy of compassion," Donna said. "Don't you agree, Doctor?"

"Ugh… yes," He groaned. "Yes, I actually do."

"Because he's been taught a lesson, and does not deserve an _eternity_ floating about in a timeless vacuum. He needs jail time, not total exile from existence itself!"

"Which is why the Doctor rigged the machinery, and showed Agent Pym how to locate the General in the Vortex, very much like the TARDIS did with you," Martha said. "That room has schisms between realities, just sittin' there behind two totally normal-looking doors; they might already have him back now."

"But if they try to do _anything else_ with that equipment, like, say, try to work out how to truss up 1938 again, there's a fail-safe that alerts the _real_ Galactic Council to their goings-on, and they will come in, guns a-blazin'," the Doctor added. "And I'll have no choice but to give evidence against them, if and when the time comes."

"So they could get away with all of this?" asked Colin.

"I've left it in the hands of Agent Pym," the Doctor said. "If he feels the General deserves to come back, then he shall. If he does come back, he _will not_ be able to manipulate time and space, and he may or may not learn his lesson about the Orlingus Cruelty scale, Rights of the Living, and whatnot. But at least we've saved the Earth, left the toughest decision in the hands of a good man, and given the bad guy a chance to do what's right."

"Now _that's_ the Doctor I know," Donna said, miming pushing her hand against him. She looked at Colin proudly.

"Wait, aren't you afraid that he'll try something with that equipment, and Pym will get hauled in with all of the rest of them when the Galactic Council shows up?" Martha asked, having just now thought of this.

"Pym is the only one I've told that about the fail-safe," he told her. "He's the only one who knows what will really happen if they try to mess with that machinery. If they do it, he'll leave. That is, if he doesn't have the good sense to leave sooner – and I think he _does_ have that good sense, don't you? And if he doesn't, and he gets arrested, I'll vouch for him. As you know, I do hold some sway with the Council, for better or worse."

"What about Uriel E. Shavingcream?" Donna wondered. "What happened to His particular Nibs?"

"Nothing," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS was able to undo the Gallifreyan annex inside that office building, so now our Mr. Greene has no place to go, to slow the aging process. He's forty-two years old, give or take, and he no longer has a heart condition. If he keeps his nose clean, he'll have another fifty years, maybe more, to live out his life in the twenty-first century. I mean, he's already, what? A hundred and twelve? That's a hell of a lot more than what most humans get!"

"You just let him loose in 2008?" asked Colin.

"I gave him an ID card with a new birthdate, so he can get a real job, and then, yes. He's free. Without that annex and without the Heimat Squad pulling his strings, he should be harmless. Maybe he'll meet someone nice, and actually try to have a life now."

"Here's hoping," Donna said, quietly, staring at her hands in her lap.

After a long pause, Colin asked, "Is everyone finished eating? My turn to do dishes."

"I'll help," Martha said, standing up, helping to gather plates.

The Doctor and Donna handed off their cups and dishes, and said _thanks_. Then, they were left alone.

"So, how much longer before I can be up and about again?" she asked the Doctor.

"I'll have to consult with my colleague, but I'd say, off the cuff, it'll be at least three or four days before I'll be comfortable with your getting out of bed – you're still a fall risk. And it'll be a few weeks before you can, you know… fully function again."

"Fully function?"

"I mean, run, jump, risk your life…"

"Oh, that."

"I mean, fully function as a TARDIS crew member. Travel, get your hands dirty, help me out, like you always do."

"I know what you mean."

"Why the long face?"

"Oh, Doctor," she sighed. "You know I can't do that anymore."

"What? Why?"

"Remember? Last week… or was it two weeks? Last month? I dunno. Anyway, I said I wasn't going to travel with you and Martha," she said, softly. "And I have to stand by that."

"You have to… why?"

"You and Martha don't need a third wheel," she said. "And now, I've got someone to stay behind for."

"You have _never_ been a third wheel, Donna," he said, rather seriously. "If anything, you're a good buffer. Martha and I are…"

"I know, you have an intense relationship. She's intense, you're intense, and together it's like _kaboom._ "

"Exactly."

"She told me the same thing," Donna sighed. "But none of that is bad. You don't need anyone interfering with your _kaboom._ I know you'd like to think that I could mitigate some of the difficulties there, but… despite what I say sometimes, you are an adult. And so is she."

"Oh, Donna…"

"Plus, as I've said, I've got someone of my own now! I've got Colin! I really think he's worth staying on Earth for."

"I think he' probably worth it, too. Have you and he talked about this?"

"What kind of a daft question is that? I've been conscious for four hours, and you've been here the whole time!"

"Sorry," he muttered. "I just wondered if he'd tried to talk you into leaving."

"No, why would he?"

"He's not exactly my biggest fan right now."

"Why?"

"Why? Seriously, why?"

"Well, what do you want from me? I've been in a coma for a week, and Martha said a lot had happened."

"Donna, you jumped into a hole, into a time portal. To protect _me_. So that I wouldn't have to do it myself."

"Yes, I did, and I would do it again."

"And you can't see why that action, and that statement you just made, might make Colin perhaps a bit suspicious of me? Might make Colin wonder what kind of cult-like hold I must have on you and Martha, to make you risk – give – your lives for me?"

"He said that? He said it was cult-like?"

"From what Martha told me, yeah. And… well, I suppose it's not unfair for an outsider to see it that way."

She sighed, and seemed to think for quite some time, then she asked, "What do you think of him?"

"I like him," the Doctor said without hesitation. "But I think he needs work."

"Needs work?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "He's a smart bloke, but he turned on me on a dime. All in one second, he went from trusting me (basically), to thinking I'm incredibly dangerous and trying to pry Martha away from me."

"He did not!"

"He did," the Doctor said. "Begged her to leave me, after he saw what happened to you. And, well… he may have a point, but he still seems impulsive, and I don't entirely trust impulsive."

"Right, because you have to be the only impulsive guy in the operation, so that the rest of us can talk you back."

"Obviously."

"Well, Doctor," Donna said, patting the Doctor's arm. "Give him time. You've got plenty of that, don't you?"

"I suppose I do," he said. Then, "Give him time. Does that mean you'd consider staying with me? With us? The both of you?"

"What, me and Colin?"

"Yeah."

"He's not cut out for this, Doctor! Didn't you just say, he doesn't trust you, and thinks you're running a cult? And didn't _you_ just say you don't entirely trust his impulsivity?"

"I can bring him round, on both fronts," the Doctor said. "Now that you're awake and alive, and he knows I saved Martha from a lascivious fiend, plus rescued his planet from a time loop… he might get it. He might get how our weird little operation works, and why. Plus, how can you say he's not cut out for this life? He's the one who jumped out of the TARDIS and snatched you back from the Vortex."

"Still can't believe that."

He chuckled, and sat back, crossing his arms and legs with finality. "Believe it, Ms. Noble. It happened. And it was spectacular."

"Okay, if Colin will stay, I will stay."

"Brilliant!" he said, exploding his arms up in celebration.

"Which brings us back to our original conversation, how long before I can be fully functional?"

"I told you, several weeks."

"Does that include sex?"

"Whoa…"

"Are you, or are you not, my doctor?"

"I…."

"Well?"

He sighed. "I'll have my colleague examine you, and she can make the call."

"Chicken."

"Yeah."

* * *

 **Awww...**

 **One more chapter left - an epilogue is coming down the pike rather soon! Stay with me for another few days...**

 **And, leave a review. You know, just to let me know you're listening! :-) THANK YOU for reading!**


	35. Chapter 35

**Well, friends, this is the final chapter! Sorry it's kinda short, but it** **really is just an epilogue to a very long story, and sets the scene for what's to come! I hope you've found this story not only enjoyable, but satisfying. It can sometimes be a "burden" to know how the Doctor will dispatch with the villain in the end... we know he doesn't just blow s*** up, not with innocents involved, and he can't be overtly cruel (like, say, have General Kir put in a place where he'd experience an eye for an eye) as he arguably was in "The Family of Blood." I also sometimes think that it's not really the Doctor's responsibility to punish the bad guy, especially someone high-up in a military (or militia?) organization.**

 **This story seemed to have 3-4 different climaxes; I hadn't meant for that to happen. I had a story in mind, and a climax in mind, but I kept realizing that I wasn't telling the whole story, and things needed to be sussed out a bit better... hence 35 chapters, and several different balls in the air! Again, I hope you feel as if most questions were answered, and all characters and conflicts were served well.**

 **And now, the stunning conclusion, of "An Oxbow in Time!" Stay tuned for another quick Author's Note at the end! Enjoy!**

* * *

THIRTY-FIVE (EPILOGUE)

The Doctor walked into the kitchen, where Colin and Martha were washing/drying dishes, and reminiscing about family stuff from days gone by.

"Hi, you two," the Doctor chirped.

"Hiya," Martha said. "Everything okay with the patient?"

"Funny you should ask," he said. "She has a question for you, and Colin, I have one for you."

"Okay," she said, drying her hands on her jeans, and handing him the sponge. "Trade places?"

"Yep," he said, and Martha left the room.

The Doctor plunged both hands into the soapy water, cleaned a bowl, then handed it off to Colin, who dried it, and stored it in a cabinet.

They repeated this process a couple of times, before the Doctor said, "So, how are you?"

"How am I? A lot better than I was yesterday."

"Because Donna's awake?"

"Yeah," Colin said, emphatically. "And not only is she awake, she seems normal. I mean, the same as before. Though… you've known her a lot longer than I have. Does she seem normal to you?"

"Actually, yeah," the Doctor said. "Disagreeable as ever."

"What?"

"I just mean… cheeky. Opinionated."

"Right," Colin muttered. Then, he chuckled. "It's funny, innit? Most of the time I've known her, she's been either absent, or in a coma."

"And yet, you seem so very attached to her."

"I am. Is it weird?"

"It's inspiring," the Doctor said, handing Colin another dish. "You knew straight away when you met her that she was someone incredibly special that maybe you should hold onto."

"I did. I don't know what it was about her."

"It doesn't matter. The point is, I could have learned something from you, Colin, because it was the opposite with me and Martha. It was a 'didn't-know-what-I-had-until-it-was-gone' sort of thing. Thanks God for Donna, or I might never have realized what a moron I'd been."

"I'll have that story off you someday, yeah?"

"Someday," the Doctor agreed. "As for Donna, I'm just really glad she's found someone. Historically, she hasn't liked being single. At all."

"Well, thankfully, neither have I," Colin replied.

"And I'm ecstatic that she's finally with someone who's not a complete wanker and/or in cahoots with a giant spider empress," the Doctor said.

"Pardon me?"

"Never mind," the Doctor dismissed.

"All of us need someone," Colin mused.

"I know I do," the Doctor mused back. "Donna taught me that, actually."

Colin continued, "Thinking of what Donna did for you, what Martha _was going_ to do for you... and even your agreeing to imprison the Earth for Martha's sake… I just think, you know, everyone deserves someone who will do anything for them. I guess that's what I was feeling, underneath the panic, when I was deciding to jump out the TARDIS door like an idiot."

"I only wish she could've been conscious to see you do it," the Doctor chuckled.

"Me too!" Colin chuckled back. Then, his tone changed. "But you know… I couldn't have done that without you, mate."

"Does that mean you're… well, warming to me?"

Colin looked at him with surprise. "What?"

"Am I wrong in that you've implied you'd do almost anything for Donna, even at this early stage?"

"No," Colin admitted. "You're not. I'm smitten. I feel like a sucker, or a twelve-year-old or some such, but… I can't help myself."

"Good," the Doctor said slowly, shutting off the water to turn and face Colin. "And I'm wondering if _doing anything for her_ might even mean, putting up with me."

"How d'you mean, _putting up with you?_ "

"Donna announced a couple weeks back that she would not be travelling with me and Martha anymore," the Doctor said. "She said she didn't want to be a third wheel. Now, she no longer has to, but only if you come along."

"Oh. Wow."

"Martha and I want her with us. We need her. We discovered a couple months ago in Mallorca, we are a great team, the three of us," he said. "If one of us goes down, there's still two people to get all clever and fix things. Whereas, with two of us, things can get ugly if one of us gets captured or injured…"

"Jesus," Colin breathed.

"Did Martha tell you what happened when my friend Jack and I were captured by another Time Lord, who then tried to take over Earth?"

"A Time Lord tried to take over Earth?"

"Yep. It was ugly for a while. Killed ten per cent of the population of the planet, the first day."

Colin's brow furrowed. "I have no memory of that!"

"You wouldn't – I turned back time."

"Of course you did. Wait, you and your friend Jack? Would that be Jack Harkness?"

"Yeah – she told you about it?"

"No, Donna mentioned his name when you and Martha were both imprisoned across the universe," Colin said, matter-of-factly. "I can't believe I just said that so easily."

"Well, even with three of us, it was a disaster," the Doctor explained. "Jack and I got ensnared by the Master…"

"The Master?" Colin asked, with one raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, he chose that name for himself – a Freudian field day. Anyway, that left Martha to save the planet all by herself."

"Oh. Whoa. She did not tell me about that."

"In fact, Francine, Clive and Tish were taken prisoner as well."

"So that's why she said that her family know full well, who and what you are."

"Yes – they know. They know first-hand. They spent a whole year with me and Jack, in slavery under the Master. Martha got us out of it."

"Amazing."

"Can't fault Francine for not liking me much, to be honest," he admitted.

"Well, she can be prickly."

"Anyway," the Doctor said, completely throwing aside the sponge. He leaned on the counter opposite. "When the Master got his hooks into all of us, I had just enough time to give Martha instructions, which she carried out like the spectacularly brave and clever woman she is. She saved us all – even you, though you no longer know it. But it took her a whole year, during which she was all alone. Alone, daunted, often sick and weak…"

"I see," Colin said, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, looking at the floor.

"I know I'm not selling you on how safe my lifestyle is, but… Colin, Martha's not leaving anytime soon – if ever. I don't think either of us could live without the other anymore."

"You love each other – anyone could see that."

The Doctor smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. Then, he added, "And if something like that happens again, we're going to need all the firepower we can get. What if Martha and I both get taken, and there's no one to know about it? What if it's me and Donna next time? Do you want Martha all on her own again? What if it's both Martha and Donna? Wouldn't you want to be involved in assuring their safety?"

"Okay, I get it."

"Although, some of that is moot, because Donna says she won't do it without you."

"She won't do what without me?"

"She won't travel with me and Martha, unless you're there."

"Oh!" Colin said, with surprise. He threw aside his dishtowel, and walked slowly round the kitchen island, and braced himself against two of the barstools. He thought for a few moments, then asked, "And if I say no?"

"I imagine you and Donna would eventually set up house, and live happily ever after, maybe never giving me a second thought," the Doctor said. "So, what would I have to do to get you to come aboard as a semi-permanent fixture, for all of our sakes?"

Colin sighed. "Could you guarantee anyone's safety?"

"You know I couldn't."

"If I wanted to stop, and go home… could I?"

"Well, yeah. In theory."

"Lovely."

"Sorry. Ninety-five per-cent certain I could get you home. Best I can do."

"But, you're saying, there's only one way I can know whether _both_ Donna and Martha are safe from mortal peril at any given moment?"

"Pretty much."

There was a long, heavy silence, and then Colin piped up again. "Actually, not necessarily. There is another way."

"Which is?"

"What would I have to do to get _you_ to find a job, and stay in London, live with Martha, have a couple kids, just be _normal_ , for all of our sakes?"

The Doctor laughed. " _Touché_ , Mr. Brownhill."

* * *

The Doctor was sitting up in bed, reading, when Martha finished her shift with Donna, and entered "their" bedroom that night.

"Wow," she said, stopping to flirt a bit. "I'm seeing you in your pyjamas! I don't know how to act."

It was the first time they hadn't had to hand off Donna's care at the end of the day, and have their kiss good-night right there in the TARDIS' medical suite, in a week.

"I'm not wearing hospital scrubs," he added, fluttering an absurd eyebrow at her. "How does that make you feel?"

"A bit flushed," she answered, approaching the bed. She crawled up beside him and said, "I'd forgotten we could both exist outside of the infirmary. Turns out, it feels kind of good."

She leaned in for a kiss, and he delivered.

"Indeed," he mused, as she pulled away.

"How'd your convo go with Colin?" she wondered.

"Donna told you?"

"She said she would only come with us if he does, so I assume that meant you went to try and talk him into it," she said. "I imagine it was no mean feat."

"Well, you know how charming I can be," he said. "I just turned it on."

"Oh, I'm sure that went over swimmingly!"

"I simply assured him that life with me is weird at best, terrifying at worst, and that I could not one-hundred-per-cent guarantee returning him, or anyone he loves, to Earth in one piece," the Doctor said, matter-of-factly. "So, naturally, he's agreed to travel with us."

"Seriously?" she asked, practically exploding with surprise.

"Sure," he shrugged. "After _that_ hard sell, who could say no?"

She laughed out loud. "Wow! This will be interesting."

"Definitely," he agreed. "I was thinking, Donna stepped aside and gave us some space to be together when we first, you know…"

"Ah, yes," she said. "We had our dirty weekend, didn't we? So to speak."

"So to speak," he chuckled. "It was five weeks!"

"Okay, a dirty five weeks," she corrected. "I suppose we should do the same for them."

"Right. We can take them back to Mallorca, even… or anywhere they want. Any _planet_ they want, really. I know of several resort planets that they'd probably find charming."

"I'm going to go ahead and assume that Colin will want to stay on Earth," she smirked. "However, as I've informed our patient, it won't be entirely safe for them to do so for another two to three weeks, at least."

"Okay."

"We need to get Donna's blood pressure under control without electrodes, and wean her off the anti-convulsants before the two of them can even _think_ about..."

"I get it."

"What? I was going to say _skiing, surfing, or operating heavy machinery_ _together_."

"Were you, now?"

She smiled. "She _said_ you got prudish about it, when she asked."

"I'm not prudish," he protested, scowling.

"Oh, I know," she sang. "I've seen."

"I just don't need to be involved in moving _their_ sex life forward."

"I told Colin she was basically a cousin to you. Looks like I wasn't far off the mark, eh?"

"A very good way of putting it." Then his tone changed. "You, however… you, Dr. Jones, are different. And returning to our earlier conversation, as I look at you, I can't help but notice that you _are_ still wearing hospital scrubs. You appear to be a few steps behind me."

"I usually am," she mused.

"What can we do about that?" he asked.

"Well, follow me to the shower, and maybe we can problem-solve together."

* * *

 **And there it is.**

 **I'm so sorry this is coming to an end... but, a new story is coming in a week or so, it's called "Hearts of Calm." It is a continuation on this story, though not a sequel (as I think of it). This means that it does not carry forward the conflicts of this story, but uses the character dynamics built in this story, and some of the framework and consequences, to work with a new conflict. Like, the next episode, if you will. It should be intense - you'll like it.**

 **Thanks for reading, everyone, and as always, here it comes... wait for it...**

 **Leave a review! :-)**


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